Physical therapy office owner reflects on career path



Tony Cenzoprano

Tony Cenzoprano, owner of Physical Rehabilitation of Garden City.

Generations of family members have been coming to the Physical Rehabilitation Center in Garden City for many years, because of the personal touch the business offers. The business, which is located at 22 Nassau Boulevard, is owned by longtime village resident, Tony Cenzoprano.

“I think what makes us special is that we don’t rush our clients and we take our time with all aspects of the therapy,” said Cenzoprano, who opened the location 27 years ago. “We spend an hour with each of our clients, helping them recover from car accidents, work related injuries or other orthopedic injuries.”

He said that the majority of his clients live in the local area, from neighborhoods such as Garden City, Garden City South, West Hempstead and Franklin Square.

“The majority of our patients are loyal customers, who I started out treating and then moved onto treating their own children and grandchildren.”

Cenzoprano said that his start in the physical rehabilitation business began in the early 1980’s when he had just been accepted to law school.

“At the time I was working with a lawyer on a case, where an elderly man had suffered a broken wrist and his sister had sustained bodily injuries. I had helped the man by performing occupational therapy on his wrist. A psychiatrist who was testifying in the case told me that maybe that was the career path I should follow instead.” 

Cenzoprano never ended up attending law school and instead heeded the psychiatrist’s advice, and followed his passion of treating patients with physical therapy.

He got his first job in the business at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation, now called the Rusk Rehabilitation at NYU Langone Health. In his time spent at that location, he was the first in the business to rotate every department.

His second job consisted of working part-time for various rehabilitation centers on adult patients. He also spent a good majority of that time working on disabled children at a rehab center in Brooklyn.

Cenzoprano opened the Physical Rehabilitation Center in Garden City in1994. He no longer works with children and focuses his therapy on adult and adolescent patients.

He still works in the office five days a week, and has no plans to retire after 34 years in the business.

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