Senior Currents

Here’s a handy guide to the array of services for seniors, prepared by the office of the Public Advocate:

The Public Advocate’s Senior Action Unit can answer questions about benefits and senior services, as well as help older New Yorkers navigate city

bureaucracies. In addition, senior volunteers are available on the Senior Action Line to help peers resolve problems with city agencies and access appropriate services.

Phone: (212) 669-7250 Ombudsman Unit (Weekdays 9 a.m.-5p.m.)

Phone: (212) 669-7670 Senior Action Line (Weekdays 11a.m.-1 p.m.)

Web: www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov/services/senior_services.html

Department for the Aging (DFTA)

The DFTA can help seniors with a range of issues, from Medicare to employment and housing.

Phone: 311

Web: www.nyc.gov/html/dfta/

We offer the following as a preview of the type of articles coming up this winter in the Bay Currents Senior Care Guide and Supplement. We welcome your feedback at 347-492-4432 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

If it weren’t for the dearth of hair on the men and the gray color of it on the women, you might think the five-story building on Quentin Road and East 10th Street was a college student activity center.

But it’s the Senior Council Center, sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women and funded primarily by the city’s Department for the Aging. With some 8,000 members starting at age 60 and more than 400 in the building on any given day, the center is among the largest in the five boroughs.

And there may be more coming in. “The baby boomers are starting to come,” said center director Rosemary Fields, a baby boomer herself (who even was at Woodstock for one of the muddy days 40 summers ago). But she’s not worried about handling the influx. “We’re one of the most active centers in the city,” she said.