Paul & Ava Zukowsky
…and Woman2Woman
at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
Paul and Ava Zukowsky were reluctant to be featured in B&NC MAG.
Paul is a Partner of ML Management Partners, one of the largest privately-held business management firms in the U.S., which has a focus in the entertainment industry and boasts a roster of dozens of high profile clients. The thing is, Paul doesn’t ever divulge the identity of his clients, and in order to agree to do this B&NC MAG feature, B&NC MAG had to agree not to disclose any more specifics than that his client list includes a few of the most famous celebrities who reside in the B&NC MAG area.
Paul is unassuming. He calls himself “a regular schlemiel”, and recounts his personal and professional history without braggadocio. “I grew up in Mt. Vernon in very humble circumstances,” Paul says. “I went to Lehman College and got a job at a certified public accounting firm to help put myself through school. And, to make ends meet, I spent the next 15 or so years of my life working my way up to being a partner at that firm. But when I turned 40, I realized I needed to do something that would lead to more fulfillment and happiness. I came home from work one day particularly frustrated and chagrined…a substantial client was a rivet manufacturer, and I’d spent the day counting rivets! So I called my current partner Mark Landesman,, who’d worked with me at the CPA firm, having left several years earlier, and already established ML Management as a successful business management firm. Mark welcomed and supported me, we eventually became partners, and good friends…and our 22 years together have been a rocketship. My work is exciting and fun. We take care of virtually every matter in our clients’ businesses and affairs. We do absolutely anything and everything for them, and we work with them through good and bad times. …I enjoy dealing with people and appreciate the particular challenge of dealing with the creative mind. It’s been a lucrative process, but more than anything I’m professionally fulfilled.” Paul just turned 65, but celebrated without fanfare, commenting, “In this day and age, you’ve got to be tone deaf to be celebrating.” He says, “I have no intention of slowing down, that looks like being dead to me! I work my butt off, and I’m not a golfer. I like my cars, I read, I play the piano, and more than anything else, we enjoy spending time with friends.” He doesn’t talk about it, but Paul also finds time to do volunteer work in the community, including serving as the current Board Chair of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College.
And the only person more unassuming than Paul…is Ava. She was born in California and moved all around the country as a kid because her dad was an urban planner and moving from place to place came along with his job. She went to high school in the Berkshires, and then the University of Massachusetts, majoring in Education. “I came to New York, stayed in my best friend’s apartment, and found a job in Queens teaching kids with special needs. Although times were tough for me economically, I was fulfilled by the social service I was doing,” Ava says plainly. “But after five years of teaching, I took a job as a headhunter in the information technology industry in order to make ends meet and, a lot like Paul back at his CPA firm, I was then successful but unfulfilled.”
“Some time later my best friend set me up on a blind date with Paul. …She was probably eager to get me out of her apartment!,” Ava smiles. “We got married, lived in Manhattan for a few years, and then, because Paul was always eager to live in the suburbs, we moved to Peekskill. In 1989, we adopted our daughter, Rebecca. We met Rebecca’s birth mother and we and Rebecca are still close with her today, but from the moment we adopted Rebecca she became the center of our universe - and my most important job! …We moved to Armonk, and Rebecca grew up going to the public schools. Now she’s got a Masters in Social Work, and lives with her husband in Brooklyn. …Nine years ago, we sold in Armonk and moved to Pound Ridge. We were thrilled to find a really rustic and private property, and we’ve made the house completely comfortable. We added a guest house so family and friends can come to visit and, as Paul’s only excess is his passion for automobiles, we’ve added a few garages. But what we like best about Pound Ridge is the community. We’ve made lots of good friends here and feel like this area is filled with interesting and caring people - and particularly people doing good work for the environment and to help people who need social services. We’re regulars at Northstar and The Kitchen Table, and really enjoy the chance to meet new friends at our local hangouts - like something from a better age.”
…But if all this about the Zukowskys seems like it could be about a lot of other folks in the neighborhood, Ava’s volunteer work in our community stands out, and warrants B&NC MAG’s focus…
Ava is a volunteer with WOMAN 2 WOMAN, an organization unaffiliated with the New York State Department of Corrections, whose volunteers meet with women incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Ava explains, “I actually learned about Woman To Woman about eight years ago from a feature in Bedford Magazine - the predecessor to Bedford & New Canaan Magazine! Like most people around here, I was hardly aware of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, no less that it is New York State’s maximum security prison for women, or that there are over 500 women incarcerated there. And I’d never really focused any attention on the penal system, allowing myself to feel comfortable in our society while eschewing care or consideration for the incarcerated. But I was moved by what I read in the Bedford Magazine article about how these incarcerated women were being treated inhumanely. While most of the women have been convicted of violent crimes, an overwhelming majority were themselves the victims of abuse, and many suffer from mental illness as a result. And the Bedford Magazine article was reporting that three women - the two Ministers and an Elder from the Bedford Presbyterian Church - had formed an organization called Woman 2 Woman…and that the incarcerated women were benefiting from the chance to merely meet and have some private and relatively quiet and safe space and time to just talk with someone from the Woman 2 Woman organization! So I volunteered!”
Ava has gone for visits at the prison a few times a month for the last seven years, and estimates that over the course of her service she’s met for varying lengths of time with about a dozen women. She reports that Woman 2 Woman, which is celebrating its Tenth Anniversary, may have thus far touched the lives of about 150 women inside the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. All Woman To Woman volunteers are carefully screened, trained, and coached, and Ava does some extra work for the organization, participating in those processes. All volunteers have to commit to a minimum one-year involvement and agree to a set of hard-and-fast rules, including a commitment that each visit be a minimum of one and one-half hours. As Ava explains, “...It’s out of respect for the women. It’s a real hardship on them to get to the meeting. Because we’re not sanctioned, it’s like any other prison visit. Their day will be scheduled around the visit and that can involve having to get up early or skip a shower. It’s a long walk from their cells to the visitor area. They have to be strip-searched by the guards prior to the visit. …And most of the women we see have no one else visiting - ever - so the least we can do is commit to being available to talk for a while.”
“Of course, another rule - like in my husband’s business - is ‘no names’,” Ava says, smiling about the irony of she and Paul both having to keep their ‘clients’ identities and life stories a complete secret, but for such different reasons. “We never ask what the woman did to be incarcerated, although they often want to discuss and explain their history. We’re not therapists. We’re simply offering the incarcerated woman a chance to have some safe social contact, to be seen and heard, and to talk through whatever they want to discuss. It’s seeing the person as a human being, notwithstanding the reason for or circumstances of their incarceration.”
“We’re not in a position to be advocates for the women we see, or for change in the prison system, generally or within the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility,” Ava says, stepping gingerly to avoid making any statement that might bring the ire of the New York State Department of Corrections or anyone working at Bedford Hills. We try to attract as little attention to ourselves as possible. It’s why I was hesitant to do this article…but decided I could help bring B&NC MAG’s positive focus on Woman 2 Woman - without making a statement about the nature of the punishment or the lack of rehabilitation these women are receiving.”
Answering a few of the usual questions about her prison visits, Ava says, “I feel one hundred percent safe making the visits. We avoid wearing green, which is the color of the womens’ uniforms - which, by the way, are the same uniforms that were designed for men. I do send some food and items for the womens’ basic needs, but we are strictly limited by the prison, and we’re anyway very careful not to become a vending machine. I correspond with one woman who I met with for quite a while at Bedford Hills, who’s been transferred to Albion - and because it’s cold up there, I sent her warm clothes. But, I don’t anticipate continuing a relationship with any of the women I see once they’re finished with their incarceration. What we’re doing with Woman 2 Woman is serving a very acute need.”
“And I want to say,” Ava adds, “that I think I’ve gotten a tremendous amount out of it. In fact, next to parenthood, my work with Woman 2 Woman has turned out to be one of the most growth related experiences of my life. It makes me feel engaged in my community and, most importantly, I’ve learned tolerance. I’m much less critical of everyone. People don’t care about the incarcerated, but these women are human beings.”
To get in touch with Woman 2 Woman please send an email in complete confidence to: Woman2WomanBedford@gmail.com
