The Legacy of Riverdale Physical Therapy

By Cheryl Paley
When you hap­pen upon Riverdale Physical Therapy, on the low­er lev­el of 2735 Henry Hudson Parkway, whether by rec­om­men­da­tion or sim­ple Google search, you are greet­ed. First, by a wel­com­ing recep­tion staff, and then by the phys­i­cal ther­a­pist who will be treat­ing you, devel­op­ing a plan of care tai­lored to resolv­ing your con­di­tion. While the walls have been repaint­ed and the space recon­fig­ured, there is some­thing famil­iar and famil­ial about this office. And that is inten­tion­al.
Jerrold Mann PT, found­ed the prac­tice 50 years ago, and has been prac­tic­ing for 63 years, bring­ing phys­i­cal ther­a­py to the Riverdale com­mu­ni­ty. In his many years of prac­tice, he not only treat­ed the whole per­son, he treat­ed the whole fam­i­ly as well; patients trust­ed him with their loved ones.
Thirty years ago, Marcela Prado PT, joined as a part­ner, form­ing Riverdale Physical Therapy. With 40 years of clin­i­cal expe­ri­ence, she is the most expe­ri­enced phys­i­cal ther­a­pist in the Riverdale region prac­tic­ing. She con­tin­ues with the prac­tice to this day, along with a devot­ed group of patients.
When it became time to sell the prac­tice in 2023, Jerrold Mann was care­ful to pre­serve the lega­cy they cre­at­ed: an approach to care that is hands-on, unique to each patient’s needs, and above all, human. With those ideals in mind, Gleb Kartsev DPT, a tal­ent­ed and upcom­ing Doctor of Physical Therapy, (and co-part­ner, along with Yehuda Daniel DPT and Artem Kovyazin DPT, of Hudson Physical Therapy at 2600 Netherland Avenue), was cho­sen to car­ry the prac­tice for­ward.
We sat down with Jerrold Mann, Marcela Prado and Gleb Kartsev:
Jerrold Mann: “I love the inter­re­la­tion­ship between myself and the patient. And it’s more than just giv­ing the treat­ments they’ve got­ten. Ultimately, it’s about know­ing that you are real­ly help­ing some­body. At the same time – and I feel Gleb is doing the same thing – it’s also about the envi­ron­ment and the joy you bring. People are com­ing to us in pain and have oth­er prob­lems. And if you can light­en the load, that’s very impor­tant. We not only take care of the pain, but a lot of oth­er things.”
Marcela Prado: “I have patients now that I treat­ed as a child. We built a diverse com­mu­ni­ty and I see Gleb con­tin­u­ing that. People come here and they are not treat­ed like robots. They go oth­er places and they get 5 – 10 min­utes and then you’re out. That doesn’t hap­pen here.”
Gleb Kartsev: “We rec­og­nize the need phys­i­cal­ly, and also look at what’s going on with­in the per­son. Sometimes there are issues that are not brought to the sur­face, which can actu­al­ly slow down the pro­gres­sion of the patient’s heal­ing. When you work with some­one and you gain their trust, it opens them up and you can see them get bet­ter faster. So, you are reach­ing peo­ple not only man­u­al­ly, but with your behav­ior. The envi­ron­ment is very impor­tant. And that’s one of the rea­sons we have a com­bi­na­tion of sin­gle rooms and the gym, because dif­fer­ent peo­ple are com­fort­able with dif­fer­ent approach­es and settings.” 

Marcela Prado: “As you work with some­one, you build a lot of con­fi­dence. It’s a kind of trust. Jerry built a busi­ness for 63 years, so we want­ed to make sure we passed it on to some­one we trust and believe in. We want­ed some­one with the skills, and the ener­gy to car­ry on our work for the next 30 years. It’s a new gen­er­a­tion. We already knew about Gleb and how he works with peo­ple, and that was the rea­son we picked him.”
Audrey Bleier, Office Manager, has added a much-appre­ci­at­ed con­ti­nu­ity to the tran­si­tion. She start­ed work­ing at the office in 2021 and is a famil­iar face, mak­ing it a smooth expe­ri­ence for patients trans­fer­ring to Gleb Kartsev. People trust and rely on her.
Audrey Bleier: “Having worked at this office before and after the change, I saw what our patients need­ed and what was most impor­tant to them. Gleb deliv­ered that. Many of our long­time patients were com­fort­able switch­ing to Gleb because they like his sense of humor and his con­tin­u­a­tion of the “hands-on,” man­u­al approach they were used to. It’s a kind of indi­vid­u­al­ized care you don’t find in oth­er places.”
Jerrold Mann: “I’m very pleased that Gleb can car­ry on the lega­cy of the 50-plus years in Riverdale, into the future. We’ve had patients who move out of the neigh­bor­hood come back to us, telling us their treat­ment at oth­er phys­i­cal ther­a­py prac­tices was cold. And that is hap­pen­ing more and more for peo­ple. You see a lot of phys­i­cal ther­a­pists just putting peo­ple on machines. That’s one of the many rea­sons I believe Gleb is a good choice, because his approach is very sim­i­lar to ours. He is a good fit.”
Gleb Kartsev: “I want to under­line and have it rec­og­nized that there is a her­itage we car­ry. Not every­body is able to build some­thing as gen­uine­ly, pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly as they did, and I have a per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty to that. I want that to live on. There are a lot of peo­ple who remem­ber it. So many were helped a great deal by it and with Marcela here, con­tin­ue to be helped. We will have a pic­ture up and framed on the wall. Most impor­tant­ly, we will con­tin­ue the work. And we will do every­thing in our pow­er to hon­or the lega­cy.”
For more infor­ma­tion, or to sched­ule an appoint­ment, please call Riverdale Physical Therapy at 718–884-0444, or vis­it riverdaleptot.com.