The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s satellite print center in Brooklyn was flooded with 12 feet of water during Hurricane Sandy.
Nick Monello
For Nick Monello, moveable type and letterpress printing are not just curiosities from the past; they were the tools of his boyhood. Now director of the Reproduction Unit for the New York City Department of Health, the –amiable, Brooklyn-born Monello has worked in print shops since he was a boy—which, considering he's now 71, gives him one of the longest tenures in the printing business.
For decades, new equipment was a rarity at the New York City Department of Health’s Reproduction Unit. Like many in-plants, the 18-employee shop languished in its basement abode, accepting equipment handouts from other agencies and buying inexpensive, small equipment when it could cobble together some funds. Then, about four years ago, everything changed. The Health Department invested $1.13 million in new press, computer-to-plate and bindery equipment for the in-plant. Then federal bio terrorism grant money funded more than a dozen additional machines. This astounding equipment infusion is unlike anything ever seen in the in-plant world.