Queens Chronicle 40th Anniversary Edition November 2018

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 2

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Published every week by

MARK I PUBLICATIONS, INC.

MARK WEIDLER President & Publisher SUSAN & STANLEY MERZON Founders Raymond G. Sito General Manager Peter C. Mastrosimone Editor-in-Chief Michael Gannon Editor Ryan Brady Associate Editor David Russell Associate Editor Matt Waters Associate Editor Terry Nusspickel Editorial Production Manager Jan Schulman Art Director Moeen Din Associate Art Director Gregg Cohen Production Assistant Joseph Berni Art Department Associate Richard Weyhausen Proofreader Lisa LiCausi Office Manager Stela Barbu Administration Senior Account Executives: Jim Berkoff, Beverly Espinoza

Account Executives: Ree Brinn, Patricia Gatt, Debrah Gordon, Al Rowe

Contributors: Lloyd Carroll, Mark Lord, Ronald Marzlock

Photographers: Steve Fisher, Walter Karling, Rick Maiman, Steve Malecki

Office: The Shops at Atlas Park 71-19 80th St., Suite 8-201 Glendale, NY 11385 Phone: (718) 205-8000 Fax: (718) 205-1957 Mail: P.O. Box 74-7769 Rego Park, NY 11374-7769 E-mail: Mailbox@qchron.com Website: www.qchron.com

• Son Of Sam, “How’m I Doing?” Mayor Koch: News Events In Queens, 1978 ... 4 • Four-Month-Long Bus Strike Causes Commuter Confusion In 1979 ............. 6 • A Look Back At 1980 And 1981 As Reported In The Paper ........................ 8 • Local Lawyer Makes Good In 1982; Cuomo Elected Governor In 1982 ...... 10 • Queens, The Airport Borough; Noise And Safety Complaints In 1983 ......... 10 • A Look At Landfills, Pollution, A Plan For Incinerators In 1984.....................12 • Keep Children With AIDS Out Of Our Schools, Said Parents In 1985 ...........12 • From Stardom To Scandal In 1986: The Tragedy Of Donald Manes ...........14 • Stories Of Howard Beach Racial Incident Dominate 1987 ..........................15 • Chronicle Coverage In 1988 And 1989 Serves More Queens Communities ..... 16 • In 1990, Community’s Fight To Keep FDNY Engine 294 Fails ......................18 • Budget Cuts In 1991 Lead To Talk Of Queens Secession In 1992 ............... 20 • Protests Against Porn Shops, Strip Clubs Get Attention In 1993 .............. 22 • Two Of Queens’ Finest Made Ultimate Sacrifice In 1994 .............................. 22 • Pope John Paul II Celebrates Mass At Aqueduct Racetrack In 1995 ............. 26 • Reign Of Terror Ends In 1996; Zodiac Serial Killer Is Caught ........................ 27 • Queens Buildings Department Gets Big Shake-Up In 1997 ...................... 27 • Broad Channel Labor Day Parade Sparks Citywide Uproar In 1998 ........ 28 • Chronicle First Newspaper To Break 1999 West Nile Virus Story ............... 28

1978 QUEENS

Your Choice Your Voice

YOUR NEWSPAPER

2018

• In 2000, Massacre In Wendy’s Restaurant Shocks Communities............. 30 • Looking Back At Coverage Of The Year We’ll Never Forget: 2001........... 31 • Gotti Left A Complex Legacy; Many Mourned His Death In 2002 .............. 32 • Iraq War And Nation’s Worst Blackout Top News in 2003 ............................ 32 • Political First And Historic Losses In 2004 ............................................... 34 • Green Bus Lines And Transit Strikes Headline 2005 Events ....................... 34 • Summertime Blackout And Sean Bell Notables in 2006.............................. 36 • Flooding Problems In 2007 And Gallagher Rape Charge .......................... 36 • In 2008, Seminerio, McLaughlin And Spitzer Highlight Disappointing Year For Politicians......................................... 37 • Hospital Closures, A New Ballpark And A Terror Arrest Mark 2009 ......... 37 • City And State Budget Battles Of 2010 Ended In Compromise .............. 38 • Geraldine Ferraro Died And Anthony Weiner’s Future Died In 2011 ............ 38 • Superstorm Sandy Devastated South Queens, Rockaway In 2012 ............... 40 • In 2013, 5Pointz Was Lost And An Autistic Boy Tragically Died ............... 42 • Dueling Protests Were Held In 2014 Over A New Homeless Shelter ........... 42 • Corruption Cases Took Down Queens Politicians In 2015 ............................ 44 • The Murder Of Karina Vetrano In 2016 Horrified The Nation ................. 45 • In 2017, A Tour Bus Crash And A Political Upset Were Big News ........... 45 • A New Plan For A Part Of Willets Point Was Revealed In 2018 ...................... 46

MEMBER

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

A

long with the entire staff of the Queens Chronicle, I am proud to present our 40th Anniversary Edition to all of our readers. The original Queens Chronicle was simply called “The Paper” and was started by my mother, Susan Merzon, on November 2, 1978. Like most new businesses, the newspaper was a small, two-person operation in the beginning and success was far from guaranteed. Actually, it was started as a hobby because of concern for the local community.

A few years later, in 1983, Stanley Merzon joined the company and together they built the newspaper into a multiple edition publishing company. In September 1984, by changing the name to the Queens Chronicle, they set their sights on expanding the paper beyond its Howard Beach and South Queens base. Over the next few years, three more editions of the Queens Chronicle were started to give the newspaper a Queenswide presence.

I joined the company in December 1990 after graduating from college.

Although I worked at the newspaper in high school and took some business courses in college, nothing prepared me for the newspaper business like jumping right into it. Over the

years we have tried many things to expand the company. Most have worked, some have not.

Even though we suffered a devastating fire in our office in December 1994, two feet of snow on several occasions, a blackout and other events, we have continuously published 2086 weeks of the Queens Chronicle for you, our readers.

When I look back, most weeks just seem to blur into one another. But when I remember our September 13, 2001 edition, it is the one I am most proud of.

After having most of the stories planned and written for the week, the two planes struck the Twin Towers on Tuesday morning September 11th. After the shock of seeing what was unfolding, our staff went into action. All of the stories were scrapped for the week and the whole edition was devoted to Queens’ view of the tragedy. Throughout the rest of the year we “Chronicled” all of the residents of Queens who perished that day.

In this, our Fortieth Anniversary Edition, we have summarized the key events of each year (1978-2018) in Queens. We also have highlighted stories that were the major events of the past 40 years.

We cover all of Queens, though not the Rockaways, with some exceptions like the horrible crash of flight 587. Nine editions of the Queens Chronicle reach over 300,000 people each week. Along with our website QChron.com, we are proud to be a part of your life every Thursday.

Along with the entire staff of the Queens Chronicle, I would like to thank you, our readers and advertisers, for bringing us to our 40th anniversary and I hope to celebrate our Golden 50th with you in November 2028.

Mark Weidler

Publisher

C M ANN page 3 Y K Page 3 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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1978 The year The Paper, now the Queens Chronicle, began publishing, David Berkowitz, alias the Son of Sam, stood trial for the murder of six people, including two from Queens. The Yonkers resident, in a killing frenzy that began in 1975 and ended in 1977, also wounded seven people, blinding one and paralyzing another, all with a .44-caliber revolver.

The 24-year-old postal worker committed the crimes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as in Queens. On June 12, 1978, Berkowitz was found guilty of the murders that took place in the Bronx and Queens and was sentenced to the maximum term of 25 years to life for each of the six murders, plus additional sentences for assault and attempted murder.

January 1, 1978 was inauguration day for “How’m I doing?” Mayor Ed Koch, who would lead the city for the next 12 years, after winning a rare third term.

A Democrat with a conservative bent, Koch defeated Mario Cuomo in a runoff primary and won the general election by advocating fiscal discipline and emphasizing his support of the death penalty and opposition to public unions.

Although Koch was credited with helping to relieve the city’s financial crisis of the 1970s, shortly after his third four-year term began in 1986, his reputation suffered. The city was hit by another economic crisis, racial turmoil, and a scandal in the Parking Violations Bureau in which his ally, Borough President Donald Manes, was entangled.

When the first issue of The Paper hit the streets of South Queens on November 2, 1978, it largely ignored the prominent concerns of the borough and the city as a whole. The Paper was, after all, a local community paper that focused its front page headlines on things of immediate concern to the people it served.

Would Howard Beach get a long-sought-after branch of the Queensborough Public Library? Should a roller skating rink be built in the Lindenwood shopping center? These were hot topics for the fledgling newspaper.

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

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1979 In 1979, The Paper continued to maintain a very local focus, reporting on news and issues of concern to those living and doing business in the Howard Beach and Ozone Park communities.

From the beginning, community concerns regarding close proximity to John F. Kennedy Airport were often aired in The Paper. As is the case now, the airport’s neighbors complained about noise, safety and pollution caused by increasingly frequent flights.

The Paper tried to serve all people in the South Queens area by covering Community Board and civic meetings as well as bringing together local political leaders, police and members of the public seeking solutions to problems.

Stories covered in 1979 ranged from harassment directed at the Howard Beach Judea Center to the rededication of Our Lady of Grace Church to the controversy about whether or not a bill in Albany should allow casino gambling in Rockaway.

The year ended with The Paper being firmly established as a local institution.

It wasn’t afraid to take on controversial issues and proved itself as a voice of the people. In December of 1979, The Paper was sued by a local business that objected to a story written about it—a true sign that a publication has pushed a few buttons and finally arrived.

Of interest to all of Queens was the visit of Pope John Paul II in October.

He celebrated mass before more than 50,000 people in Shea Stadium almost a year to the day after he was chosen the 264th Pontiff.

When President Jimmy Carter held a Town Hall meeting in Colden Auditorium at Queens College earlier that year, more than 2,000 of the borough’s residents attended the hour-long question and answer period.

Four-Month-Long Bus Strike Causes Commuter Confusion

by Kathleen Louis

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

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ews about the striking Green Bus Lines dominated the pages of The Paper for months in the last half of 1979.

The Green Bus Lines drivers, members of Division 1179 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, walked out on July 1st of that year, asking for a $2 increase over the $8.55-per-hour wage they had been receiving. Green Bus Lines offered them a 45-cent increase every year for three years, a figure the drivers would not accept.

Then, and for decades, the private bus line was franchised by the city and served nearly 150,000 people, mostly in the mid and southern parts of Queens.

Not only did the strike leave commuters stranded in vast areas of the borough without train service, when the strike lasted well into October, more than 20,000 school children were affected as well.

A state mediator met with bus company management after the strike had passed the 100-day mark. Previous mediation attempted by Borough President Donald Manes was stymied by the city’s refusal to agree to the desired pay increase. It would have involved a $1-million subsidy to the Green Bus Lines from the city.

Community School Boards, concerned with unprecedented absences of children, particularly at the junior high school level, urged the state commissioner of transportation to find alternative forms of transportation for students. A state board of inquiry was formed when mediation efforts broke down.

One reason the city balked at the Green Bus Lines drivers’ demand for a pay increase was that the city’s Transportation Authority drivers received only $8.08 an hour.

Some things never seem to change. The conflict and controversy between the continued on page 47

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 8

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1980 Local crime in South Queens got a lot of play in The Paper this year, beginning with the January sentencing of two Broad Channel teens for the fire bombing of the town’s A Train token booth which led to the death of the two token clerks trapped inside.

A rash of brush fires that plagued the neighborhoods bordering Jamaica Bay had local Fire Department officers calling for community help to catch the perpetrators. False alarms and illegal fireworks during the summer months had the Howard Beach FDNY captain, once again, reaching out to area residents through the pages of The Paper.

The Republican Club in Richmond Hill marked a milestone when presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke there. It was one of the last times the historic clubhouse was used for political purposes.

By covering a small geographical area in its early years, The Paper was able to devote pages to listing the names and photos of students graduating from local schools in June. It also featured a poetry corner, a cooking column, fashion scene photos and regular Little League and other youth sports stories.

News in other areas of Queens in 1980 included an April transit strike.

City buses and subways were shut down and Long Island Rail Road workers supported the strike by blocking station entrances.

Local elected officials blasted the borough’s airports, calling for stricter safety measures in storing fuel and monitoring flights. In June, shortly after taking off from Flushing Airport, a student pilot and his instructor were killed when their single-engine plane crashed a few feet from the Whitestone Expressway.

In July, Claire Shulman was appointed the new deputy borough president. She had been director of Queens community planning boards since 1972.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1981 Transportation concerns, whether they were airport safety or bus service, continued to remain top stories in The Paper in 1981.

The fuel storage tanks at Kennedy Airport raised issues of safety for the surrounding South Queens neighborhoods and elected officials repeatedly called for noise control of overhead flights. The year ended with an announcement by the Port Authority of vast improvements at the international airport.

The Green Bus Line demanded an increase in the fare to a dollar while riders continued to complain about poor service.

In April, the director of the South Queens Boys Club was shot and the Ozone Park Jewish Center was burglarized just weeks before a Holocaust memorial service.

A shotgun murder and an Ozone Park slaying added to the local precinct’s crime rate. July was marked by huge illegal fireworks displays and the arrest of a dozen members of a motorcycle gang on Cross Bay Boulevard.

In the rest of the borough, more and more co-op conversions led to confrontations between tenants and landlords. The possibility of casino gambling in the Rockaways was a hot topic of debate.

Shea Stadium was quiet in the spring and early summer of 1981. A baseball strike took the Mets off the turf until a severely shortened season resumed in late summer.

The Paper reported extensively on local and boroughwide politics in 1981, an election year. New lines were drawn for City Council districts and the South Queens Democratic Club actively lobbied for its candidates. Results of both the primary and general elections received ample commentary in the newspaper.

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1982 The Paper, staying true to its goal of being a source of local community news, continued to report on events of interest to the people of South Queens.

Green Bus Lines employees once again staged a walkout.

However, it was short-lived compared to the four-month strike staged in 1979.

Being in close proximity to JFK Airport, issues of noise, safety and pollution have always been of concern to South Queens communities.

Those issues got regular play on The Paper’s front page. In March, Congressman Joseph Addabbo, Sr. blasted the Federal Aviation Administration for failing to enforce noise regulations at the borough’s two airports.

A big story for one small South Queens community, Broad Channel, broke in August when homeowners were finally allowed to purchase the land their houses were built on. Residents of the town had been leasing the land from the city for decades.

Queens has the dubious distinction of being home to the only toll bridge in the city that connects one part of a borough to another. In 1982, tolls on the Cross Bay Bridge between Broad Channel and Rockaway once again rose.

Queens beach-goers were now required to pay 90 cents each way to take a dip in the Atlantic Ocean.

The year drew to a close as the largely Italian neighborhoods of South Queens celebrated the election of Mario Cuomo as the state’s new governor. The Queens native was a big hit at a Howard Beach festival that summer as he traveled across the borough on the campaign trail.

The Paper ended 1982 by beginning a tradition that still continues. Photographs of homes lavishly decorated with holiday lights were given front page prominence.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1983 Residents and local elected officials in South Queens started the year complaining about noise from planes flying into and out of Kennedy Airport, an issue that would be continually reported in the newspaper through the years. In April, airlines were once again given an extension of the waiver that allowed planes to exceed noise levels set by the Port Authority in 1982.

A Valentine’s Day blizzard dumped enough snow on the borough to close city schools. It took days for the Sanitation Department to clear away the mounds of snow.

In Queenswide news, the controversy over what would happen to Fort Totten in Bayside continued. The federal government was still deciding whether or not to sell portions of the large property to non-profit groups or private owners. The city also wanted a portion of the land for recreational use.

Plans to use Flushing Meadows Park for the New York Grand Prix automobile race, which Borough President Donald Manes encouraged, outraged Queens’ environmental and civic groups. Another Manes proposal for the park included a giant domed sports stadium. He had hoped the venture would persuade the Jets to remain in the borough.

However, after months of negotiations and an offer from the city of a multi-million-dollar renovation of Shea Stadium, the Jets left for New Jersey.

In Western Queens, a loss turned into a gain when Silvercup Bakeries became Silvercup Studios, an economic anchor in the part of the borough that would continue to see development and growth through the years.

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1984 The new year began with The Paper under new management. News coverage quickly expanded to include the South Queens communities of Woodhaven and Richmond Hill.

Front page news concentrated on concerns that remain problems today, such as overcrowding in public schools, increased police protection and flooding of area streets after heavy rains.

The Woodhaven and Richmond Hill neighborhoods rejoiced in the fact that the Police Department’s mounted unit returned to the stables at the 102nd Precinct and Forest Park. The unit had been removed from the area during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.

All of Queens mourned the death of four Franklin K. Lane High School students.

They were killed, along with several others, during a raging fire that swept through a Great Adventure fun house. The teens had been on a class trip to the New Jersey amusement park.

After heavy spring rains, residents of South Ozone Park suffered flooding and sewage back-ups so severe that local politicians soon called for disaster relief aid for homeowners. The flooding problem remained in the headlines for months and was eventually addressed by city plans for a new sewer installation.

In 1984 the paper’s name was changed to the Queens Chronicle and a second edition was born to address the needs of the Queens Boulevard communities of Elmhurst, Rego Park and Forest Hills.

Big news for all of Queens was when Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, of Forest Hills Gardens, officially became the first female candidate for national office on a major party ticket when she was nominated by the Democratic Party as a running mate for presidential-hopeful Walter Mondale.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1985 When the Queens Chronicle began publishing the Boulevard edition, which covered the Queens Boulevard communities of Elmhurst, Rego Park and Forest Hills, in late 1984, the paper’s news coverage doubled to include Borough Hall meetings and issues of interest to a much wider readership. One major story that garnered headlines periodically throughout the year was the trucking of nuclear waste through Queens.

In July, then-Borough President Donald Manes testified before a congressional hearing to protest the fact that Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island had been transporting used radioactive rods through populous areas of the borough on the way to disposal areas out of state. He suggested the nuclear waste be carried by barge across Long Island Sound instead.

By November, however, the United States Department of Transportation announced its refusal to ban the trucking of nuclear waste through Queens.

The agency said the city failed to prove the practice was unsafe.

Another story that made Queens Chronicle headlines, as well as gaining citywide attention, concerned allegations that police officers in the 106th Precinct in Ozone Park had routinely used stun guns to brutally torture the people they arrested. As a Grand Jury began hearing testimony in the cases in May, many members of the community rallied at the precinct house to show support for New York’s Finest.

The allegations of brutality led to a complete shake up of the entire precinct command. All managerial personnel were transferred and then-Deputy Inspector Ray Kelly, who later became police commissioner, was brought in as the new commanding officer. He is still remembered by members of the community as the man who brought peace and stability to the beleaguered precinct.

C M ANN page 13 Y K Page 13 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 14

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From Stardom To Scandal; The Tragedy Of Donald Manes

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M

1986

arch 13th, 1986, marked the end of the brightest political career The year 1986 was a low point in Queens history, in Queens’ history, when the borough’s darkest scandal beginning with a major political scandal followed by a tragic suicide. The year ended with an ugly racial incident began to emerge. That was the day Donald Manes, the oncethat resulted in a victim’s death. respected borough president, committed suicide amid allegations of Two days after he was sworn in for a fourth term, Borough Presiwrongdoing during his tenure. dent Donald Manes attempted to kill himself, allegedly because he Only months earlier, the people of Queens resoundingwas a major player in a wide-spread Parking Violations Bureau scanly supported his bid for a fourth term. “Manes is best recogdal. He later succeeded in taking his own life after resigning his post in nized for his achievements in the Queens educational February. system, in industrial development and for his regard for senior Claire Shulman, who had been Manes’ Deputy Borough President, was citizens,” the Queens Chronicle wrote at the time of his election. handed the reins of Queens leadership and kept her place at the helm until Manes was a wunderkind of Queens politics since his elec2002. She proved to be an active leader and her photos and strong opinions popped up regularly in the pages of the Queens Chronicle. tion to the City Council at the age of 31 in 1965. Six years later, Astoria’s Peter Vallone was elected vice chairman and majority leader of he became the youngest borough president in the history of the City Council and remained in a leadership position until 2002.

Queens, replacing Sidney Leviss, who became a State Supreme In April, the borough would mourn the loss of another powerful Court judge. He was the hand-picked replacement, chosen by p o l i t i c a l l e a d e r w h e n C o n g r e s s m a n J o s e p h A d d a b b o S r. , 6 1 , the powerful Queens Democratic Party. succumbed to cancer after secretly battling the disease for years.

For more than 10 years, Manes controlled the party and He had held his South Queens congressional seat for 26 years. worked to secure funding for many local construction projects.

Queens rejoiced in October when the borough’s own Mets beat the He also tried to complete two projects that would have forever Houston Astros in the playoffs and went on to conquer the Boston changed the face of Queens. He wanted to put both a Grand Prix Red Sox in the World Series.

Just one week before Christmas in 1986, a racial incirace track and a domed football stadium in Flushing Meadows Park, dent in the community of Howard Beach reverberated but both were blocked at the last minute. around the country. Three young white men were He enjoyed incredible celebrity in the figurehead position of Borough eventually convicted of manslaughter in the President, and was credited with getting more work done than many attack on three black men that led to the before him. But he will be remembered most for the Parking Violations death of Michael Griffith, 23, who Bureau scandal that ultimately cost him his life. had stopped at a local Only two days after his fourth inauguration, on January 10th he left Borough pizzeria there.

Hall and told his chauffeur he would be driving home himself.

He did not go home.

“At approximately 7:30 that night,” the Chronicle wrote, “Manes entered his car parked by Queens Borough Hall, and was spotted driving erratically along the Grand Central Parkway by police over six hours later. When stopped, police discovered the left wrist of the Queens Borough president had been slashed, and he was bleeding profusely.”

Four days later, Manes told police he had been carjacked by two knife-wielding men, who gave him orders about where to drive and slashed him. Police were suspicious of the story and said the wounds looked self-inflicted. Manes changed his story a few days later. “There were no assailants, and no one but me is to blame,” he said.

On Tuesday, February 11th, Manes stepped down, as the allegations of a scandal between the Borough President’s Office and the PVB gained steam in the local and national press, and city prosecutors, including an eager Assistant U.S. Attorney named Rudy Giuliani, were zeroing in on Manes and Bronx Democratic leader Stanley Friedman.

Manes released a statement indicating he was taking a temporary leave of absence from politics, and his assistant, Claire Shulman, was named as his replacement. “The people of Queens deserve a leader who is able to devote his or her full strength to the duties of office. My emotional and physical health is such that it will be a long time before I am able to give that kind of effort,” he said.

But his resignation was followed by a deep depression as the scandal grew. He remained in seclusion at his home until one day he had dinner at his sister’s house.

When he returned home, he called his therapist while his wife was also on the line.

During the call, he thrust an eight-inch knife into his heart, killing himself.

The funeral was held at Schwartz Brothers Chapel on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, where the line to view the body stretched around the corner and far down the street. Mayor Ed Koch, Governor Mario Cuomo, and other politicians attended, including then-Assemblyman Alan Hevesi, who encouraged people to remember Manes’ good public works in the face of scandal.

“Donald Manes was an outstanding public figure, not only a loving husband, parent and family member, but a great political figure,” he said.

As details of the scandal emerged, Manes was implicated for taking bribes from private towing companies, which he would then offer contracts to through the PVB. The fallout from the scandal was the main impetus for the creation of the Campaign Finance Board in 1989, which monitors and regulates spending by politicians.

C M ANN page 15 Y K

by Kathleen Louis

W

1987

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

e are a residential neighborhood catapulted into infamy,” read the last paragraph of the Queens Chronicle editorial on January 1, 1987. “This is a price too high to pay for the stupidity of a few adolescents.”

Based in Howard Beach, the Queens Chronicle took a personal stance against the nationwide media frenzy that engulfed the community after Michael Griffith, a 23-year-old black man, was struck and killed by a car after being chased onto the Belt Parkway by a gang of white teenagers. The entire neighborhood was labeled racist as a result of Griffith’s tragic death just a week before Christmas, 1986.

Headlines in the Queens Chronicle throughout While versions of the events leading up to Griffith’s death 1987 repeatedly turned to the arrest and eventual varied, by all accounts, he and his companions, Cedric Sandiford trial of the Howard Beach teens accused of contributing to the and Timothy Grimes, had finished eating at a local pizzeria death of the black man they had chased out of their neighborhood when a gang of bat-wielding white teenagers began attacking prior to the new year. them. Grimes and Sandiford were armed with knives. Grimes Other issues of importance during the year included the city’s plans escaped uninjured, Sandiford was beaten, and Griffith tried to develop homeless shelters in Queens. Borough President Claire Shulto escape by running onto the Belt Parkway. man was fighting Mayor Ed Koch’s plan to establish large shelters housing On December 27th, more than 1,000 demonstrators at least 100 homeless. gathered at New Park Pizza on Cross Bay Boulevard She wanted to house small clusters of the homeless in each community board of the borough so that no particular neighborhood would be inundated. where the three black men and more than a dozen However, Ozone Park was having none of that. Residents successfully fought white teens first confronted each other on that fateful Shulman’s plan for two small shelters there.

Saturday night. Accompanied by media from across the During the hot days of summer, refrigerated trailers were brought to nation, black activist Al Sharpton, NAACP leaders, as quite a few of Queens’ many cemeteries. Bodies awaiting interment well as political leaders of all stripes, the demonstrators had to be stored in them from June 5th through the end of August because marched north on the boulevard with a police escort. cemetery groundskeepers and gravediggers were on strike.

The march ended at the John Adams High School footThey wanted a new contract that would force non-sectarian cemeteries to ball field in Ozone Park where speakers called for racial pay them at the same high rate they were receiving from the borough’s harmony and, at the same time, denounced Howard Beach Jewish and Catholic cemeteries. as a hotbed of racial prejudice.

The reconstruction, or lack of it, of two major thoroughfares caused controversy in 1987. Woodhaven and Ozone Park residents called The only marcher and speaker representing the Howard on the city to do something to change Atlantic Avenue from a Beach community at the rally and demonstration that day speedway to a safer street. The Queens Chronicle reported was Reverend Charles White, who was assigned at the time that there had been five pedestrian deaths on the avenue in to St. Helen’s Church. “Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream,” he the past eight months, including that of a six year-old said. “I have a small dream—that Howard Beach is not rememgirl who was struck by a speeding motorcycle. bered for what happened a week ago, but for the example we can be South Ozone Park residents were fighting the to other communities as we move forward—a new Bethlehem.” city’s plan to widen Rockaway BoulePolice eventually arrested and charged 12 Howard Beach teens in the vard. They feared it would lead to confrontation that resulted in the death of Griffith. The February 12, 1987 increased truck traffic. edition of the Queens Chronicle reported that Jon Lester, 17, Scott Kern, 18, and Robert Riley, 17, were all charged with second degree murder and various other crimes including assault, riot, inciting to riot, and conspiracy.

Nine other Howard Beach teens were indicted for crimes ranging from assault to riot.

Most were released on bail, except for Lester, who was in jail on an unrelated weapons charge at the time of the indictment, and Riley, who was released because he cooperated with authorities.

“We are a community of decent, hardworking Americans, comprised of every race, religion and ethnic background,” stated the front page Queens Chronicle editorial of January 1st, “and we live and work in a harmony that any community in the country would be proud of.”

However, an inside article in the same edition told a different story. As demonstrators marched up Cross Bay Boulevard that day, white residents gathered behind police barricades shouting, “Go home! Go home!”

The Queens Chronicle blasted Mayor Ed Koch saying he “saw this as an opportunity to go on television and improve his image by lambasting a whole community for the senseless acts of a few.”

The New Year’s Day editorial went on to add, “Let’s put this to rest and hope that the major media will find something else to sensationalize. Leave us alone to heal our wounds, make amends and build harmony for the future.”

By the time 1987 came to a close, Lester, Kern and Jason Ladone, 18, were convicted of manslaughter and assault in the death of Griffith. They received various prison sentences. Riley, who turned state’s witness, received a much lighter sentence. All were eventually released. Lester was deported to England and committed suicide in 2017.

In 1988, other Howard Beach teens were convicted of lesser charges in the case and sentenced even as the first three appealed their convictions and lost.

Page 15 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

Howard Beach ‘Incident’ Sparks Chronicle Front Page Editorial

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 16

C M ANN page 16 Y K

1988 This was a year of firsts in Queens. For many of the borough’s residents, 1988 was the first year they were able to hook up to cable television. Curbside recycling was also introduced in a few Queens neighborhoods.

Although American Cablevision, with mostly underground cables, was introduced in Western Queens as early as November, 1986, and Brooklyn Queens Cable first came to Northeastern Queens in December, 1985, the process of getting the service to everyone who wanted it was slow.

Those living in Southern Queens did not even have the option of signing on until mid-1988.

Avid television viewers had longed for cable hook-up for years. Demand for the service was so high that the cable companies could not get links to homeowners fast enough.

Glass and metal curbside recycling was born in the borough in June. It was a small pilot program begun in Forest Hills, Rego Park, and later Bayside. Mayor Ed Koch was accused of dragging his feet in bringing the service to other parts of Queens. Curbside recycling of newspapers had been taking place for more than a year but had still not encompassed the whole borough.

Early in 1988, the proliferation of pit bull fighting was a scandalous front page story in the Queens Chronicle. A Richmond Hill pet shop on Jamaica Avenue was raided by the ASPCA. The back of the store housed a blood-soaked fighting ring, kennels and 34 scarred and battered pit bulls. Many of them had to be euthanized because they were so dangerous.

The borough’s Rockaway beaches held no relief from the summer heat in 1988. That was the year beaches were closed due to the sewage and hazardous medical waste that continued to wash ashore there.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1989 Curbside recycling and the installation of cable television continued to take in greater parts of Queens in 1989. A six-week pilot program of mobile recycling was tried by the city whereby residents had to voluntarily bring their recyclables to a Sanitation truck in their neighborhood.

A groundbreaking was held for QUICS cable service in Richmond Hill.

The company had just formed a partnership with Warner Cable, whose parent corporation had just merged with Time, Inc. To boot or not to boot was the burning question in Forest Hills Gardens in 1989. The private community’s security patrol regularly immobilized illegally parked cars by booting their wheels. Irate drivers took the corporation to court, claiming the $95 fee to get the boot removed was too high.

In South Queens, a scandal that had been brewing in Community School Board 27 for years finally came to a head when the nine members were suspended in October. By December, two of the former board members had been indicted for extortion, mail fraud, bribery, coercion and conspiracy. Just one of the school boards in the city fraught with corruption, the downfall of CSB 27 and others led to legislation diminishing the power of local boards.

The Queens Chronicle exposed a big Department of Transportation blooper when a front page story described the fiasco of Atlantic Avenue’s reconstruction. The community had begged for a redesign of the roadway to make it safer. However, the reconstruction revealed left-turn bays that were too short for more than one car, a center mall only two inches high over which cars freely drove, and a lack of pedestrian crosswalks. It was the death of five pedestrians the previous year that had prompted the reconstruction.

C M ANN page 17 Y K Page 17 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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C M ANN page 18 Y K

Engine 294 Closes Second Time In Spite Of Community Protest

by Kathleen Louis

R

esidents of Woodhaven, Ozone Park and Kew Gardens joined those of Richmond Hill in 1990 at repeated rallies to protest the possible closure of Fire Department Engine 294 on Jamaica Avenue. In his first year in office, Mayor David Dinkins had proposed drastic budget slashes and cuts in services in an attempt to get the city out of its financial hole. He said Engine 294 was on the chopping block, as well as several in other boroughs.

The Richmond Hill engine company had been deactivated once before, in 1975 at the start of that decade’s fiscal crisis. It was not reopened until July of 1981 and many in the community remembered those years as a time of increased response time and fire-related deaths.

“We’re not going to tolerate another 1975,” said Councilman Walter Ward at a rally in June 1990. “How many people were lost? We’re not going to lose 20 more of our people.” A Queens Chronicle photo of the hundreds in attendance at that rally shows Mayor Dinkins being hung in effigy from a Jamaica Avenue street sign.

An issue that came to the front page of the Queens The rallies of 1990, however, failed. Engine 294 was removed Chronicle in 1990 affected commuters in many of the from the Richmond Hill firehouse the first week in January far-flung communities of the borough. A bill was introduced in 1991, although Ladder Company 143 remained there. the City Council to regulate the “dollar van” industry, which had The president of the Firefighters’ Union predicted at been booming for the past decade. Use of the unlicensed multi-seat the time that “people are going to die.” Tragically, his words vans greatly increased during the bus strike of 1980. proved too true within the week.

By 1989, the Chronicle wrote, there were 200 of the vans operatA roaring fire claimed the lives of two brothers, Walter ing in Jamaica alone. An average of 20,000 riders utilized them daily.

However, drivers and owners of the van were accused of recklessness and and Ihor Stercyk, who lived in a house just blocks away the bus companies complained that they were taking away fares. The bill from the firehouse. Ladder 143 arrived quickly, but had to established Department of Transportation licensing of the van companies wait for an engine company to pump water on the blaze. and established routes for the drivers that would not compete with existing By the time the firefighters were able to get water to the bus routes. burning building, the home was totally engulfed, the Protests and rallies were once again the method used by residents Chronicle reported. One witness said members of the ladto get their opinion heard about various topics. In April, the people of der company risked their lives trying to enter the building Maspeth came out by the dozens to call for the closing of an incinerator there before backup arrived. that had been polluting the air since 1987. In June, people from Woodside One of the victims was found near the back door. and Elmhurst marched along Queens Boulevard to protest the growing He apparently passed out only seconds before his life prostitution problem. Countless rallies were held to keep Fire Department Engine 294 in Richmond Hill open. could have been saved. Hundreds of concerned residents The Chronicle served as the voice of the people in Queens and legislators gathered in near-freezing temperatures to as it reported on community meetings all over the borough. express their grief at a candlelight vigil in front of the burnedPeople in Bayside were concerned about proposed residential out home. They also expressed their outrage at what many homes for teens. Overdevelopment was an issue in Little thought was a tragedy that could have been prevented had Neck. Those living in Springfield Gardens wanted the Engine 294 not been closed.

Immigration and Naturalization Service jail out In spite of more rallies and letter-writing campaigns, Mayor Dinof their neighborhood. And residents of kins refused to budge. Engine 294 remained closed. In September, Rosedale were complaining about another massive fire destroyed two Richmond Hill homes. No one was the blockbusting tactics of injured, but a week later a five-year-old girl was killed and six were injured realtors. in a fire that erupted in a house on 102nd Avenue. A fire in an industrial building on Atlantic Avenue in Woodhaven destroyed that structure the same week.

In spite of those local fires, the Chronicle reported that more Fire Department cuts were threatened in 1992. Battalion 53 in Bayside, which was responsible for 11 units, 6 engines and 4 ladder companies, was one of five battalions in the city that were targeted for possible elimination.

The Richmond Hill community continued to urge the reinstatement of Engine 294, to no avail. In February 1993, a Woodhaven blaze that injured five firefighters led to another front page outcry to bring back Engine 294. In March 1993, Borough President Claire Shulman and several Queens councilmen submitted a proposed budget to Mayor Dinkins that would have reallocated the money needed to reopen the Richmond Hill engine company.

Mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani attended one of the many rallies still being held in front of the Jamaica Avenue firehouse. Since the engine company was closed, 10 residents of the area had been killed as a result of fires. Giuliani promised, that if he were elected, he would reactivate Engine 294. On March 6, 1994, he made good on his campaign promise.

Through the years, Engine Company 261 in Long Island City has repeatedly been threatened with closure during fiscally shaky administrations. It survived until May of 2003.

Engine 293 in Woodhaven, also on the short list to be eliminated in 2003, avoided that fate—at least this time.

1990

C M ANN page 19 Y K Page 19 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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C M ANN page 20 Y K

1991 One of the biggest stories covered by the Queens Chronicle in 1991 was the March trial of Reverend Floyd Flake, Congressman from Jamaica. Pastor of the 6,000-member Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church, he had been indicted in November 1990 for tax evasion and misappropriation of church and public funds.

Within three weeks, Flake was exonerated and all charges were dropped.

The Chronicle had begun publishing an Eastern Queens edition in 1989 and articles about Flake’s activities as a congressman and his achievements as leader of the Allen A.M.E. Church were, and are still, frequent.

In February, Mayor David Dinkins angered many Queens residents by announcing plans for expansion of the United States Tennis Association facilities in Flushing Meadows Park. By August, the USTA was seeking $150 million for the plan which included three new stadiums and an increase in size from 17 to 31 acres.

Against community protests, Fire Department Engine 294 in Richmond Hill was closed as part of the mayor’s budget-cutting strategy. Less than a week later, a fire caused the death of two brothers who lived in a wood frame house just blocks away from where the engine company had been located.

By the end of the year, the city passed a bill that would improve the technology of the emergency 911 calling system. The new computerized system was designed to increase accountability for response time.

An airport noise reduction plan was approved by the Port Authority for both of Queens’ airports. In November, the Chronicle carried photos of Borough President Claire Shulman presenting plaques to three airlines that successfully reduced the noise of their aircraft.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1992 In January and February, Queens Chronicle headlines shouted once again about proposed Fire Department cuts. Fire Battalion 53 in Bayside was threatened with layoffs of professional and support personnel.

But in the early months of 1992, the Chronicle carried a surprising and unexpected response to budget cuts in the borough. State Senator Serphin Maltese, as well as other elected officials, announced legislation that would pave the way for the secession of Queens from the rest of the city. He said people in the outer boroughs were treated like second-class citizens when it came to city services.

Other news in 1992 was much the same as it was 10 years earlier and not much different than it is today. Ozone Park residents continued to fight the illegal conversion of one-family homes into cramped apartment units. Community School Board 27 in South Queens was accused of corruption. In December, CSB 24 in Glendale was suspended by the chancellor because they refused to comply with the Children of the Rainbow curriculum, which discussed alternative lifestyles and homosexuality.

Queens residents continued to blast the Federal Aviation Administration for stalling on enforcing noise reduction plans for the borough’s airports.

Another issue sparking protests and rallies was the city’s decades-old plan to build incinerators for the reduction of trash and production of energy. It wasn’t just a case of “not in my backyard.” Environmentalists were appalled at the borough’s noise and air pollution.

It was not a good year for Queens economically. In July, the Taystee factory in Flushing closed its doors, costing 510 people their jobs. Retailer Alexander’s also went belly up, closing both its Rego Park and Flushing stores.

C M ANN page 21 Y K

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C M ANN page 22 Y K

1993 On February 26th, a bomb ripped through the underground garage of the World Trade Center, filling stairwells and corridors with smoke. Many Queens residents were among those injured or trapped by the blast, including schoolchildren on class trips to the Twin Towers.

Nearly 40 second-graders from PS 191 in Floral Park were stranded for hours on the 107th-floor observation deck until they were led downstairs to safety. Dozens of third- and fourth-graders from PS 91 in Glendale were trapped in an elevator for more than four hours.

March saw the beginning of a rising tide of protest throughout the borough against what many saw as an invasion of adult entertainment into quiet residential neighborhoods. Runway 69, with its nude dancers, was run out of Forest Hills.

Queens’ gay and lesbian community made strides for acceptance when the borough held its first Gay Pride Parade through the streets of Jackson Heights in May. Earlier in the year, many local Community School Boards had been very vocal in their opposition to including the Rainbow Curriculum in classroom lessons.

Queens made national headlines in June when the Golden Venture ran aground off the Rockaway peninsula with nearly 300 illegal Chinese immigrants aboard. At least 100 of the passengers, who had reportedly paid as much as $30,000 each to be brought into the country, jumped overboard into the choppy surf.

Thirty were injured and six drowned. Others were rescued by police, firefighters and the Coast Guard. The captain and crew members were charged with smuggling the immigrants into the United States. The surviving immigrants were detained. Eventually some were granted visas while others were deported.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1994 Through the years, the Queens Chronicle has carried stories about the plight of the borough’s small mom-and-pop stores in the face of the proliferation of “megastores.” In February 1994, small retailers and community activists in Ozone Park lost their bitter battle with a giant when The Home Depot opened its doors on Rockaway Boulevard. The big question on a lot of people’s minds was “What’s next?”

The problem in South Queens was the shaky future of Aqueduct Racetrack, owned by the New York Racing Association. The Ozone Park thoroughbred track had been on questionable financial ground for years and residents of the area were afraid of what might replace it should it be sold. The Home Depot property had previously been owned by the NYRA. It was even proposed in June to put a casino in the Aqueduct clubhouse. In July, a bill was introduced in Albany to allow winter racing at the track.

To the delight of Richmond Hill residents, Fire Department Engine 294 reopened in March. No sooner had they gotten their beloved engine back than the feisty residents of the community started rallying again, this time to keep a topless bar from opening.

Many communities in Queens got caught up in the momentum of keeping adult entertainment from encroaching on their neighborhoods. In Rego Park, they protested the opening of Wiggles. Residents of Maspeth and Elmhurst tried to chase a porn shop out of town. The people of Bayside were successful in their efforts to halt operation of a massage parlor. Hundreds participated in an anti-porn march down Queens Boulevard in August.

It was in September that ground was broken for completion of the subway tunnel under the East River between Queens Plaza and 63rd Street in Manhattan.

C M ANN page 23 Y K Page 23 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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C M ANN page 25 Y K

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C M ANN page 24 Y K

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

Founded in 1968 by Michael Scarola, Pat Spallone and Joseph Luccisano, the Surfside 3 Motel has remained owned and operated by three generations of the Luccisano family.

As we approach this holiday season we are thankful for the patronage and support of our guests from near and far. We would also like to thank our wonderful staff of friends and neighbors as well as the Howard Beach community where we work and live.

We look forward to many more years of providing comfort and hospitality to all who come through our doors.

C M ANN page 25 Y K

The Family at the Surfside 3 Motel is proud to announce our 50th Anniversary

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 24

C M ANN page 24 Y K

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

Founded in 1968 by Michael Scarola, Pat Spallone and Joseph Luccisano, the Surfside 3 Motel has remained owned and operated by three generations of the Luccisano family.

As we approach this holiday season we are thankful for the patronage and support of our guests from near and far. We would also like to thank our wonderful staff of friends and neighbors as well as the Howard Beach community where we work and live.

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 26

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Pope John Paul II Celebrates Mass At Aqueduct; 75,000 Attend

by Keach Hagey

F

or his second visit to Queens, Pope John Paul II made a dramatic entrance by helicopter onto the football-field-sized platform at Aqueduct Racetrack. He was greeted by chants of “John Paul II, we love you” from the crowd of more than 75,000.

Those present on that morning of Friday, October 6, 1995, still talk about the brilliant sun that flooded the South Ozone Park racetrack as the helicopter touched down at 8:45 a.m. After wishing the crowd good morning, the pope celebrated mass, preaching family values and asking those gathered to look beyond the technology in their lives to find room for God. “Society must strongly reaffirm the right of the child to grow up in a family in which, as far as possible, Fire Department issues and city budget cuts dominated both parents are present. Fathers of families must the news in the Queens Chronicle in 1995. Fire Commissioner accept their full share of responsibility for the Howard Safir proposed eliminating street-corner fire alarm boxes, lives of their children,” he said. to the outrage of many communities. But a pilot project removing the During the mass, six different languages— boxes from some neighborhoods was approved. This was the year the English, Castilian, Creole, Polish, Korean and city’s Emergency Medical Service merged with the FDNY, in spite of oppoItalian—were spoken. “I know there are many sition from EMS personnel.

Spanish-speaking people, families and comMayor Rudy Giuliani called for cuts in hospital reimbursement rates for munities present at this mass. In the heart of Medicaid patients, looking ahead to possible privatization of the city’s healththe pope, you have a special place. To each care facilities. Queens Borough President Claire Shulman joined civic groups in protesting the MTA’s proposed fare hike from $1.25 to $1.50. Unlike other parts one I express my sincere love and affection of the city, much of the borough was still in a two-fare zone, another source of in the Lord,” said the pontiff in Castilian, ire for Shulman. receiving a huge round of applause.

Queens’ airports had problems in 1995 as well. Both LaGuardia and KenQueens residents of all national origins nedy were shut down for hours after a bomb threat, allegedly from an Islamic came out to share in the experience. Others, terrorist group, targeted a Long Island control tower in August. In November, such as students from the Franciscan Unithe Queens Chronicle reported on the serious under-staffing of the borough’s versity in Ohio, drove from as far as 11 hours airport control towers and the out-of-date equipment still in use. away. “The pope has no nationality,” said In May, Queens mourned the passing of musician Dr. George Seuffert Jr., 82, Linda Morona, a member of Saint Sebastian’s who had followed in his father’s footsteps as band director, conductor and Church in Woodside. “He is universal.” organizer, since 1928, of free summer concerts in the city’s parks. The historic bandshell in Forest Park is named for his father who died in Queens Chronicle reporters and photogra1964. phers were out in full force covering the historic October was a month of triumph and tragedy as Queens event. Coverage actually began weeks before, as celebrated the visit of Pope John Paul II, but was sadarchitects and construction workers labored around dened by the death of Firefighter Peter McLaughlin the clock to transform the racetrack into a temporary who was killed in a Long Island City blaze that cathedral worthy of the Vicar of Christ. was later determined to be arson.

Carpenters installed 320,000 square feet of donated carpeting and built a boardwalk for the more than 400 priests to traverse from the altar to the grandstand when distributing Eucharist to thousands of faithful.

The altar, which rose from the track infield against a yellow and green backdrop, flanked by 70-foot towers, took five weeks to design and three weeks to build. Some 20 tractor trailers trucked more than a million pounds of steel into Aqueduct for the job.

From building the platform to shooting the pictures, performing regular jobs in the presence of the pontiff had a profound effect on everyone involved. “I’ve met the governor and the former governor and taken their pictures. I’ve met the President and taken his, too.

But to be able to get so close to the pope, the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, will be one moment I’ll never forget,” wrote Queens Chronicle photographer Dan Derella of his experience.

Derella woke up at 4 a.m. but it wasn’t until after 10 a.m. that he made his way through multiple security checks to get close enough to the platform for the shot he needed. “If you told me three years ago that I would be taking the pontiff’s picture, I would have laughed. But now, as the reality and the magnitude of the event sets in, only one phrase comes to mind, ‘Wow, this job is tough, but it is beautiful.”

1995

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In early January 1996, Queens was hit with a major snowstorm that left between 20 and 24 inches throughout the borough. It was the third largest snowfall in the city’s history, closing public schools for two days for the first time in 18 years. The borough’s two airports were closed for nearly three days.

In February, the first Chinese New Year’s festival was celebrated in Flushing. The colorful, happy occasion was marked by a parade, music and many cultural attractions. The annual event now encompasses all of the borough’s Asian groups.

Queens saw two major structures demolished this year: the Aquacade in Flushing Meadows Park and the Elmhurst gas tanks along the Long Island Expressway. Built as an attraction for the 1939 World’s Fair, the Aquacade was operated by the famous entertainer, Billy Rose. Local historic preservationists bemoaned its destruction, but the city said it was dangerous.

The Elmhurst gas tanks had been emptied by the Brooklyn Union Gas Company in 1993. They had become obsolete with the advent of more efficient pipelines. The first tank was built in 1910. When their massive framework was dismantled in 1996, motorists on the LIE lost a familiar Queens landmark.

In August, residents near the borough’s airports got a scare when broken plane parts fell from the sky. A piece from a wing flap bombarded a street in Howard Beach, fortunately injuring no one. A bit of broken propeller fell off a plane flying over Flushing. These incidents were all the more frightening because they came just three weeks after a bomb scare at the Howard Beach-JFK train station and only a month after Flight 800 was blown from the skies over Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard.

Page 27 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

1996

1997

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

A major story in Northern Queens this year was the ongoing saga of the landmarked RKO Keith’s Theatre in Flushing and owner Thomas Huang’s attempts to circumvent preservation and restoration of the structure. In March, Huang was charged by the state attorney general with environmental crimes and then, a few days later found to be delinquent in payment of property taxes and water and sewer bills.

Huang had purchased the historic theatre in 1987 and closed it down. Over the years he ignored or bypassed city regulations, destroying landmarked sections of the 1928 building and not maintaining it properly. Huang eventually sold the property to a reputable developer.

In February, the Long Island Rail Road closed its Richmond Hill station. In other transportation news, private “dollar van” operators sued the city for the right to do business in Queens and the old two-fare zone system for the borough’s commuters finally came to an end. The Interboro Parkway, which had tied up traffic in Central Queens for three years due to reconstruction, was renamed for baseball legend Jackie Robinson.

Congressman Floyd Flake of Jamaica announced his retirement from politics in 1997, during his sixth term, in order to devote himself full time to his pastorate of what is now called the Greater Allen Cathedral of New York. Under Flake’s leadership, the church has grown to 13,000 members and operates a school, a senior center and hundreds of low-cost housing units.

In September, the ribbon was cut on the new USTA Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Flushing Meadows Park. Instead of attending the ceremony, Mayor Rudy Giuliani went to a rally protesting the rerouting of planes away from the stadium during the weeks of the US Open tennis matches.

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 28

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1998 The year opened with Police Officer Hiram Monserrate, of the 111th Precinct in Bayside, filing a lawsuit against the city and the Police Department alleging he was punished for speaking out about racism, discrimination and police misconduct. A second vice president of the Latino Officers Association, the 10-year veteran of the force claimed he was transferred to undesirable assignments after complaining to department brass about several incidents.

In 1999, Monserrate won a judgment of more than $100,000. He has since left the Police Department and is now representing Jackson Heights and Corona as a city councilman.

Carol Gresser, who had represented Queens on the Board of Education for eight years and served as its president for four, lost her seat when Borough President Claire Shulman declined to reappoint her since Gresser had locked horns with Mayor Rudy Giuliani on more than one occasion. She was replaced by Terri Thomson, who served until the Board of Ed was reorganized in 2002.

Queens’ airports were once again in the news. The Federal Aviation Administration gave the nod to increased flights at LaGuardia and approved the AirTrain link between Kennedy Airport’s terminals and the Howard Beach A Train station. In October, residents were appalled when a plane dumped 3,000 tons of jet fuel over the South Queens neighborhood of Howard Beach. The FAA was a no-show at a meeting seeking resolution of the problem.

The summer of 1998 ended with the small community of Broad Channel making citywide news. A float in the town’s annual Labor Day parade depicted white men in blackface enacting an insensitive parody of a recent racial incident.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

1999 The battle between Queens residents and sex clubs, strip joints and X-rated video stores was fought in the courtroom in 1999. Goldfingers was forced to shut down for a while, but by the end of the year, Wiggles was back in action on Queens Boulevard.

Residents of southern and eastern Queens protested the City Council’s decision to approve plans for what is now known as the AirTrain. The multibillion-dollar project, then named the Train to the Plane, was overseen by the Port Authority. It was to connect travellers to and from Kennedy Airport with the Long Island Rail Road in Jamaica and the A Train in Howard Beach.

Those who lived in Southeast Queens may well have wondered about the wisdom of spending so much money on a Train to the Plane while they suffered the consequences of an antiquated sanitary and storm sewer system. In January, torrential rains flooded the streets of Springfield Gardens, causing damage to dozens of homes.

Residents in Maspeth, Fresh Meadows and Flushing also suffered flooding from the storm, but areas of Southeast Queens were by far hardest hit. A $70-million construction project got under way in 1999 to address the problem.

Bugs and beetles also made headlines in Northern Queens this year.

Beginning in February, the dreaded Asian long-horned beetle was discovered in Bayside. Nearly 200 trees were found to be infested and had to be destroyed.

In August, the discovery of dead birds in many of the borough’s northern neighborhoods led to a link with encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes. In Queens, three people died from what was later identified as the West Nile virus, a strain of encephalitis.

C M ANN page 29 Y K Page 29 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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Gruesome Wendy’s Massacre Is Crime Of Century In Queens

by Liz Rhoades

F

ive lives were lost in Flushing on May 24, 2000 and two other people were injured for a measly $2,400 in coins—a robbery-homicide known as the Wendy’s massacre that in Queens, became the crime of the century.

The victims, all hard-working individuals, ranging in age from 18-44, included young people, immigrants, people of vastly different nationalities and one woman, who all died in terror as two gunmen shot them execution style in the walk-in freezer of the fast food restaurant located at 40-12 Main Street.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called it the most gruesome crime scene he had ever witnessed and eventually sought, and got, a death sentence for John Taylor, called the mastermind of the ill-fated robbery. At one time,Taylor had worked as assistant manager at the Wendy’s and knew some of the employees who were shot.

His partner, Craig Godineaux, was eventually found to be slightly retarded and could not be tried for the death penalty. He pleaded guilty and is now serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The two survivors, Patrick Castro and Jaquione Johnson, lived to testify in Leadin court that John Taylor shot Wendy’s manager Jean Auguste, then turned the g off th Quee gun on screaming Anita Smith before handing the weapon to Godineaux Familiens’ first New Y e new year, a and telling him to finish the job. He then shot Ramon Nazario, Ali Ibamuseu s from all o ear’s Eve ba nd the new ms the s dad, Jeremy Mele and the two who survived. re an ver the boro h held at Flu millennium Wit Queen h t he new m d enjoyed mid ugh came ou shing Mead , was Taylor and Godineaux then fled the store and took public transporof its s s. The Long I illen niu m c night firew t for a night ows Park. tation to get home. It didn’t take police long to track down Taylor, a t o s o s econd ations in t he land Rail Ro me new majo rks over the f fun at the who had a history of holding up fast food restaurants. b U a b u r d nisp o i d b l r d e e o to site He was arrested on Long Island at the home of a relative and up to s ing in t he lon ugh. Long Is gan a multi-mvelopment p here. w i rojects l x g a i i -await llion-d t h st ro ne w e n nd Cit was found with the murder weapon, money from the robbery and fo e The ye ng resista nc erg y-genera d Queens D y saw grou n ollar renovat r the surveillance videotape taken from Wendy’s. Godineaux was evelop e f rom dbreak ting pl io a r wa s r e s m a p c i nts alo a l s o to ng for n iv ic gr e nt P r o onded arrested later in Jamaica, where he worked as a security guard n u o t je o g c u h p s t c c h e Ea s tores b e d by om mu t t he r e t he s a nd in a men’s clothing store. t he clu y enforcing nit y outrage its sha re of s local elected t R iver, howe . Pla ns The two had entered Wendy’s before closing time, joked with a ne ca n ove bs ver, me of t Late in to remain in w zoning pl r adult enter dals. This w f icials. the staff, and then Taylor asked to see the manager in his basea t p a t a n h s l i a . nment e yea r, t h e y ea But a l ce.

Hills w c p o ment office, where the safe was located. He ordered Auguste r l o a u e t p r b h r hole in s e was be e shocked ishioners o t he law and X-rated cit y at gunpoint to call his employees downstairs. They were all f Ou r L i ng qu to lea r video a l l e r o a n s e w d t m t i y ed ma n h at t h e on e d r ov e d b Q ue e n bound and marched into the freezer, where large plastic bags e y of School y t he dioces ga rding $ 2 ir pastor, M of Ma r t y rs were put over their heads and then shot. e m o C n D a h i s l s i u l s i i r g t t o h c r f n n o h i e o ct 29 i r mer s r Thom i n m is invest in For At the dramatic trial that began in October 2002 and ended n severa uper i ntende Easter n Qu igation cont sing church as Gradilo est shortly before Thanksgiving, relatives of the victims sat as chilli l busin ne, nt C e le n e f u e u n s wa nds. H e d. es s back s e wa s ing details of the crime were revealed to the jury, sometimes ca nda s associates, t i ne M iller. s rocked by l whe r Along t She ha running out in tears as information about their loved ones was e she Miller was w it h he indict m db brought up. toting een f ired ea allegedly ri charged in a her husba n ent of st ude rl ie r i n gg d w Assistant District Attorney Daniel Saunders, in a two-hour clost he yea ed compute idespread k a nd Th e e x n t . r c ont r ickr for n ecutio ing statement, pointed to the plastic garbage bags as evidence of a ot r e p o c n Wendy r ting a t bids. ’s resta-st yle k illing Taylor’s intent to murder the seven Wendy’s employees. Holding up g u nu ra of i ng a r r the box that held the bags, Saunders told the jury that their purpose was est of t nt in Flush i f ive employ to prevent blood from splattering on Taylor since he had to take public domin he t wo alle ng a nd t he ees of a ged pe ated t h e n s ur pe transportation home. “He knew where the bags were and his fingerprint e half of news in t he t rators was found on the box. This was never just a robbery because there would have la s t t h e y ea r. been seven witnesses and three knew him.”

The Queens Chronicle noted in its story that the prosecution counted heavily on the testimony of Johnson, now 20, who was able to recount in chilling detail much of the massacre since the garbage bag only went partially over his head and he saw most of the shootings.

Although the defense tried to put holes in Johnson’s story, saying his memory was affected by the shooting (he required brain surgery and months of rehabilitation), he stuck to his story and the jury believed him.

The assistant district attorney also offered another motive for the crime: revenge. Taylor disliked Auguste, because he was his supervisor at Wendy’s and had called him to task.

Saunders described Auguste as a star on the rise. He was promoted to take Taylor’s place after he was fired by management. “That was more than Taylor could tolerate and he became obsessed. He wanted to show (Wendy’s officials) what could happen with Auguste in charge.”

It took the sequestered jury only 11 hours to find Taylor guilty. A week later, following the penalty portion of the trial, he was sentenced by the same jury to the death penalty.

Taylor remained stonefaced as he had throughout, when the jury found that the mitigating circumstances were not enough to sentence Taylor to life in prison.

The families of the victims were satisfied with the penalty, saying justice had been served. Joan Truman-Smith, mother of the only female victim, told the Queens Chronicle: “Let him think about what he did to my daughter. I never thought this could happen in this country,” said the Jamaican native. “Taylor killed her like an animal. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

The restaurant never reopened and is now a mini-mall. Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas, came to Queens a few months after the massacre and with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, planted a tree of remembrance for the victims at the Queens Botanical Garden.

Taylor was taken to Dannemora State Prison. Appeals of the verdict, mandated by state law, could take 10 to 20 years.

2000

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W t to r t . f o l o u pp o e n d hop e r e a a t s e e r i n r e h o u s u T h e a nd e w e s t h g e t h f ut r v ic e d s o e t g n h a a r f l ut t ns B r i a l s e Q ue e s t pa i n a of p

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 32

C M ANN page 32 Y K

2002 Each event in the borough in 2002 was overshadowed by lingering memories of the previous year’s attack on the World Trade Center and the tragic crash of Flight 587 two months later.

Airport security was an ongoing topic as local and federal officials pushed for more screening of both airline employees and passengers.

By the end of the year, new screeners and procedures were in place.

The year began with Helen Marshall assuming the reins of the borough’s leadership, Michael Bloomberg at the city’s helm, and dozens of freshman city councilmembers replacing those ousted by term limits.

Mayor Bloomberg would begin his battle with the Board of Education in a bid to wrest control away from its members. No sooner did he dub it the Department of Education than he made moves to get rid of community school boards.

Employees of the private bus companies that serve Queens’ commuters measured the mayor’s mettle when they staged a seven week strike in the summer.

The companies won a $4-million advance from the city.

One of the most sensational news stories covered by the Queens Chronicle this year was the trial of John Taylor, eventually convicted in the 2000 slaughter of five Wendy’s restaurant employees in Flushing.

Controversy, in 2002, was in ample supply as news stories revealed that the growing scandal of past sexual abuse by priests touched many Catholic parishes in Queens.

However, it was just one controversial Queens figure who stole headlines and front page photos in each Chronicle edition in June. Reputed mob boss John Gotti, of Ozone Park and Howard Beach, succumbed to cancer while in a federal prison.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

2003 One of the defining events of 2003 to date is the war in Iraq. People from Queens protested, were deployed overseas, and some came back in coffins. Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at the funeral of a Maspeth Marine in March. Corporal Robert Marcus Rodriguez, 21, became the city’s second casualty when his tank plunged off a bridge and landed upside down in the Euphrates River.

Also in March, on a lighter note, Woodhaven native Adrien Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in “The Pianist,” the story of a gifted Jewish musician who survived the Holocaust. After receiving his Oscar, Brody sent a surprise message to Rego Park’s Tommy Zarobinski, a childhood friend who was serving in the Army National Guard in Kuwait at the time of the Academy Award broadcast.

Most will probably remember 2003 as the year of the nation’s worst-ever blackout.

In the blink of an eye, on the afternoon of Thursday, August 14th, electricity supplies stopped abruptly, leaving parts of Queens without power for up to 36 hours.

Thousands were trapped in subways and high-rise elevators and widespread traffic jams were caused by inoperable intersection signals.

The blackout hit the borough just as the evening commuter rush was getting under way. However, Queens’ residents proved they knew how to handle an emergency as ordinary people volunteered to direct traffic and road rage was virtually nonexistent for a change.

However, the same couldn’t be said for other types of rage on other days of 2003. A vigil and protest against hate crimes still being perpetrated against members of Queens’ immigrant communities was held in Jackson Heights in August after a Woodside family was attacked with racial slurs and spit upon.

C M ANN page 33 Y K Page 33 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

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C M ANN page 35 Y K Page 35 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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C M ANN page 36 Y K

200 6

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C M ANN page 37 Y K Page 37 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 38

C M ANN page 38 Y K

2010 Battles raged over the city budget for much of 2010, as Mayor Bloomberg proposed fiscal year 2011 cuts that would close a number of firehouses, libraries and senior centers, but in the end a compromise was reached and the institutions lived on. In Albany, things were no smoother: The state’s spending plan was approved four months late, following a fight between the Legislature and Gov. Paterson.

Combating sex trafficking was a priority for the Center for the Women of New York and the Queens Chapter of the United Nations Association-USA, which jointly sponsored a conference on the issue in March.

The LGBT community became alarmed by the April murder of a transgender woman in Ridgewood. A prostitute, she was killed by a client who was later convicted of the crime.

After many fits and starts, state plans to have a racino and entertainment complex built next to Aqueduct Race Track in South Ozone Park took a big step forward as Genting, the last company to bid on the project, presented its plans to residents in July. Genting would be the winner, eventually building and operating Resorts World Casino New York City.

Longtime City Councilman Tom White Jr. died at the end of August and was remembered for addressing issues such as substance abuse, crime, teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. A tornado tore through Queens in September, destroying property and countless trees in several neighborhoods.

That same month, Newtown Creek was finally labeled a federal Superfund site due to its toxicity.

Former state Sen. Hiram Monserrate was charged in October in a corruption case that ended with his going to prison.

A devastating snowstorm hit at the end of the year, one made worse by the city’s failure to plow many streets for days.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

2011 Three times in three months — March, April and May — drivers exiting the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge lost control and crashed onto Queens Plaza South. Two people were killed.

Police said speed was a factor each time, but many said road design also played a role. Strangely, all three cars were Volkswagens.

Queens lost an icon in March when Geraldine Ferraro, a three-term congresswoman and the first woman named to a major-party presidential ticket, died at 75. The former teacher and prosecutor had focused on issues such as poverty, the environment and women’s equality.

O’Neill’s Restaurant and Sports Bar in Maspeth was destroyed by fire in early May. It didn’t reopen for more than two years.

Rep. Anthony Weiner was discovered to have been sexting with a number of women and lying about it to the public. He resigned in June. He later attempted a comeback with a run for mayor but kept exchanging erotic messages with women not his wife and went to prison because at least one of them was an underage high school girl.

Gay marriage was legalized statewide in late June, with the first LGBT couples in Queens taking their vows in July.

Hurricane Irene hit in late August, causing widespread damage, though nothing like Superstorm Sandy 14 months later.

The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks was commemorated with solemn events across the borough.

In October, Barbara Sheehan of Howard Beach was acquitted of murder in the killing of her husband, which she said was an act of self-defense following years of abuse. She did serve time for gun possession, however.

Longtime civic leader Pat Dolan was hit by a car and killed in November. A trail in her beloved Flushing Meadows Corona Park was later named in her honor.

C M ANN page 39 Y K

Assemblyman

Mike Miller MIMI-074971

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Happy 40th Anniversary to The Queens Chronicle

The Hammers Softball Team wants to wish our Third Baseman

Mark ‘Headline’ Weidler A Happy 40th Anniversary of his Newspaper’s Founding!

Assembly Member

Page 39 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 40

C M ANN page 40 Y K

Superstorm Sandy Floods Rockaways And South Queens, Leaving Devastation

by Anthony O’Reilly

I

t was one of the most devastating storms Queens has ever seen, and to this day many have still not fully recovered from the destruction.

Superstorm Sandy made landfall on Oct. 29, 2012, bringing wind gusts of more than 80 mph and rainfall that pummeled coastal communities for hours on end. In Queens, Howard Beach and the Rockaways felt the brunt of the storm’s wrath.

Houses were ripped apart by the wind; boats, decks and other objects were picked up and smashed into people’s homes. The old Rockaway boardwalk was ripped to shreds. Cars that were not on high ground were washed away or destroyed.

Water quickly rushed into people’s houses, including those who had never before seen flooding. Businesses along Cross Bay Boulevard were decimated, including some that were newly opened or renovated. The Surfside Motel served evacuees from Rockaway, but floodwaters caused the National Guard to evacuate people, including a Fox News crew, from the peninsula.

The floods became the least of Breezy Point’s worries — the rising seawater caused wires in one house to spark a fire, which grew to a six-alarm blaze that spread to 130 houses, all of which burned to the ground.

When the storm was over, much of South Queens looked like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The National Guard was stationed on Cross Bay to direct people to relief centers and stop looters along the corridor.

Many Howard Beach residents went to Lindenwood, where apartments still had power. “We had strangers coming into buildings and showering and using laundry services,” Joan Ariola-Shanks, president of the Howard Beach-Lindenwood Civic Association, said in a 2015 interview. Schools were also used as information centers, where residents could learn how they could begin the process of rebuilding their houses and lives.

In Hamilton Beach, organizations from around the country and world rushed in to provide food and cleanup services to residents. Buddhist monks provided resources and labor unions helped those who needed to sift through the rubble. South Ozone Park families brought grills into the neighborhood to make food, and a food truck from Chicago came down to make hot meals for everyone, a gesture that made the days following the storm a little easier for everyone.

The West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department was the community’s recovery center and the place where donations of clothes, food and more were sent by those looking to help out.

To this day, residents say the storm’s silver lining is that neighbors did not hesitate to help each other out.

Still, the recovery effort was painful for many as power was not restored to much of South Queens for more than two weeks.

Those who still had cars after the storm were frustrated by a fuel shortage that caused many to wait for hours at gas stations.

The A train was out of commission for seven months due to water damaging the tracks and electrical equipment, causing commuters to get to and from Manhattan via a ferry, which ran until October 2014 and was revived as part of a citywide system in 2017.

The city in 2013 initiated the Build it Back initiative to rebuild people’s houses, or reimburse those who did the reconstruction on their own, but it was riddled with problems from the beginning and many people are still waiting for help finishing the work.

2012

Co e r n Q u ng r e s s m a n G March eens a nd N ar y Ackerm state A 15 t hat he w assau Cou n an, who rep a n nou ssembly me ould retire t y for 15 ter resented no Counci nced t heir in mber s Grac at t he end o m s, a n nou n r thCounc lwoman Eliz tention to r e Meng a nd f t he year. De ced on ilm un ab m R City Co a n Da n Hal eth Crowley. for his seat or y La ncma n ocratic , l u M o a n r q u ic k l e s a c ng won il Spea Ruben n for t h did De y k in resp Wills of his c er Christine e seat in No and would de mocratic Cit Q v o y o f e m n e u mb e at Repu se to in n mitt $33,00 blican 0 state Will’s ongoi ee assignmen on June 11 stripr. n grant a Counci warded g refusal to c ts and all dis ped Jamaica l. cr oo Co to a no State S nprof it perate with a etionary send uncilman happen en. Shirley H ing p g s r t o a up he r t an befo e investigatio owers the Par ed to public m untley of Jam n in r e a ents W o ica wa being e ney se o render lected to a ed in N rkshop. Auth cured for a c s indicted as a to the h assau C u orities Nassau alleged arity she fou thorities inve o u n C t y o u nt y P n on Aug s i ng a c that sh oli .2 ar e helpe ded with her tigated what niece, c d falsif Fuller, chase t hat e ce Of f icer Ar 7. y al n t s record roadsi ubsequently ded on t he Cr hur Lopez, 28 s. She s led de car ja o s s I sla s hot a n ur, wa s s hot a nd nd Par ck ing. d k ille The cit k d k w R i a y l a l y. ed y m ond r ena m Forest e d t he Facey, The g un ma n followHi ,D 52, of B dentia lls for for me cor ner of A rook ly ar rell l c a nd i ust i n S r C on g n in a d r t r eet essw at e Hurric ane Sa Geraldine Fe oma n a nd D a nd Asca n A s u r ge ndy str r ra r o o emocra v t ha uck n tic vice enue in hoods i t along w it h on Oct. 29, b Oct. 28. presin th rin f ir tens of e Rockaway es w iped out ging a 13-foo t stor s and wh bi l l section ion s of dolla Broad Chan ole neighbor m n s of Qu r e s l , i ca n for a w eens were w da mage. Ma using eek or ithout n power y more.

C M ANN page 41 Y K

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2013 Melinda Katz won the race for Queens borough president, as the former assemblywoman and Council member was victorious in both the primary and general elections.

In March, developers bought 23 acres of land in Willets Point from the city for a whopping $1.

The year saw politicians from both sides working together, as Democrat Malcolm Smith and Republican Dan Halloran were arrested in April in connection with a plot to bribe GOP officials to gain support for a Smith mayoral run on the Republican line.

And disgraced state Sen. Shirley Huntley wore a wire to aid the FBI in a case as she faced state and federal prosecution for embezzling money from a sham nonprofit organization.

It looked like Major League Soccer would come to Flushing, as a billionaire member of the Abu Dhabi family bought a team, and the league and the city discussed putting them in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Not only did soccer not come to Flushing, but NYCFC signed to play at Yankee Stadium. There was good news for sports fans in the borough as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game returned to Queens for the first time in nearly 50 years. The 1964 version was at Shea Stadium; this time around it was at Citi Field.

The City Council voted unanimously in October in favor of a land-use variance to replace the 5 Pointz warehouses with a mixed-use residential complex with artist studios, commercial businesses and a park. Artists and activists were upset to see the buildings that had been covered by street art from around the world would be lost. Hundreds of people gathered at the location shortly after the artwork was painted over.

Avonte Oquendo, a 14-year-old autistic, nonverbal student, ran out of school and set off a citywide search.

Despite the best efforts of volunteers he was never seen alive again.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

2014 City Councilman Ruben Wills was arrested in May and charged in a 12-count indictment in connection with stealing state and campaign funds and creating a fake paper trail to cover up the alleged thefts. He would eventually be convicted of stealing tens of thousands of dollars in public funds meant for charity and campaign use.

In March, Christ the King’s basketball team defeated rival Bishop Loughlin at Fordham University to win the Catholic High School city championship, two weeks after Loughlin had blown them out.

Popular Rego Park restaurant Abbracciamento’s, which had served John F. Kennedy, closed its doors after being in business since 1948.

There was a celebration of both the 75th anniversary of the 1939-40 World’s Fair and the 50th anniversary of the 1964-65 World’s Fair in May, recalling the extravagance of those iconic events.

In June, Elmhurst residents were shocked when the Pan American Hotel was converted into a homeless shelter two weeks after DHS Assistant Commissioner Lisa Black insisted the location would never be used for homeless housing. Weeks later, more than 900 anti-shelter protestors and about two dozen of the shelter’s occupants took part in dueling rallies across the street from each other.

Jamaica High School, which was established in 1892, closed its doors as the final class graduated before the site was split into four different schools.

Leroy Comrie defeated seven-term state Sen. Malcolm Smith in the 14th District Democracy primary and then won the general election.

Assemblyman Bill Scarborough was arrested on more than 30 federal and state charges, including felony grand larceny, filing false campaign documents and fraud. He was later sentenced to 13 months in prison.

More than 80 Ozone Park families were displaced for Christmas after a five-alarm fire ripped through an apartment building, rendering all of the units uninhabitable.

C M ANN page 43 Y K

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C M ANN page 44 Y K

Political Corruption Results in a Slew of Convictions of Queens Officials

By Michael Gannon

S

tate and federal prosecutors investigating political corruption in Queens in 2015 had a better winning percentage than the World Series-bound New York Mets.

Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith had been marginalized in Albany, and probably rightly believed he had no shot at getting the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2013 in a field crowded with talent.

The Southeast Queens lawmaker decided to ask the city’s five Republican committees for permission to run on the GOP line. But federal prosecutors said he wanted to leave nothing to chance, and attempted to buy his way onto the ballot. The problem was that a businessman who agreed to front some of the bribe money actually was an undercover FBI agent. Elements of the scheme also involved Noramie Jasmin, the mayor of the Village of Spring Valley, NY; her deputy mayor, Joseph Desmaret; and Bronx Republican Chairman Joseph Savino. All either were convicted or pleaded guilty.

On Feb. 5, 2015, a jury agreed with the case brought against Smith by the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Smith was convicted of trying to bribe Republican officials, whose permission the lifelong Democrat needed to run under the GOP banner. Former Queens Republican Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone was convicted of receiving bribes and witness tampering.

That same day, state Assembly speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) removed Jamaica Assemblyman Bill Scarborough from his longtime post as chairman of the Small Business Committee, as Scarborough fought charges that he falsified his Albany travel vouchers, claiming more than $54,000 in improper reimbursements.

From that point, one needed a scorecard to keep up.

Two days after Smith and Tabone were convicted, Democratic Councilman Ruben Wills of Jamaica, already under a 12-count indictment for stealing state funds, was arrested again, this time for submitting five falsified disclosure reports with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board res fo th 10 between May 2012 and May 2014. Wills began his political a w wi at mo career working for former state Sen. Shirley Huntley, who in d th ough, v. Cuo sit as r a zz ot en d Go tran 2013 received a federal sentence of 366 days for a corrup-bli ar. ega but it g asio an mass tion charge, but was released early in spring 2014. m l ye air l l h d a c B — n e ts a in did On March 4 it was Dan Halloran’s turn, as the ews ld’s F st 36or d de n 5 Wor the f ir ed the ounty . May y stree a t former Republican councilman from northeastern e m r ct s it gh -6 ’t g kC cial 1964 up fo g-negle idn Suf fol borou own c Queens and congressional candidate received a i f d f s e d o td en — the 5th ens m th ighte e lon 10-year federal prison sentence for his role as a Que an. 27 eting to shu e 10 The Que on f ro ere l ing th h f k J t s o n go-between with Smith and Republican officials. t r . a . bla rs w sav v ili t fo ber sion nit ay 2 cas nches r deci r-miss a num ate Pa t towe made He was originally being tried with Smith and e U on M s i m t i s a i re a g e S 2 e e r e Tabone but elected to continue in June 2014 to 1 ded th the n volvin York o tall Katz h befo nti-C Villag y n a n A a w n a n d w i t e d e e en s e when the latter two sought and received a misr th n ch def ent giv cases old Ne as its Melin elit d bi ity the f birth n the s t the in Qu n trial because prosecutors had withheld a tape of d o r n f o i u a e t c o o r r e e n e p rrup er 24, tne esid 0y one of the other defendants in the case speaker s ommu reness ere sh h emb is par Co arch ime 5 gh Pr d h a c m e w w h d t u a M h , a c ing with his rabbi. The tape also had to be trano n 5, h On ack in s. Bor rea ily a aise phia wit e, 2 scribed from Yiddish. orld rely r fam ts to r iladel oor atrol ater. t b ecade rity. a n b M r d-w to e e h r o i f P w in d prio rian on p ays l each ut h f Things switched back to the Democrats’ camp th lan B oe e e l of B B a p ta tim cture f f icer t whil two d ward ay 12. irit int ospita on May 7 when Scarborough pleaded guilty in por illion r e i o o i p u H O M A b str YPD as sh uld d n of H ct on ting s en’s a 4 separate state and federal cases — shortly after i n 15 a rd f a $ N ct, w p wo Alle defe ldr igh a judge ruled that prosecutors could use records nt i aGu ling o in d co arie eart ina’s f he Chi a L c n e n Pr orate a M y a h alent for t led unvei from his cell phone as evidence in their case. He e pe ies. n cal agu ld Ser man dec alenti ken b and V f unds ad ly 27 e resigned as part of the plea deal. h L l o u V as ta love nci nal Wor a i se , wh he J Scarborough would be sentenced to 13 months in atio n the by Cou rvices N he wd their nd to r den o at t y. i s t i B e ll rs prison on Sept. 14. l rt nele ects; a ted. ent Joe . Cuomentire heir f i p sho ed a bi erans S iceSmith began serving a seven-year sentence at a def s trea resid d Gov ild it won t ome u pprov of Vet r serv low-level security federal prison on Nov. 6, and Tabone wa Vice P joine rebu Mets uld c ncil a ment forme o , a three-and-a-half-year sentence on Nov. 20. Both surrenand ork Cou part ,000 lity ple. yw faci design New Y gh the e City e a De e 225 Big Ap dered in Pennsylvania. h t h re The thou 11, t crea ist t he in t to a ss rs, ov. yea On N Ulrich fort to omen w f Eric in an e n and e m

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

5 1 20

C M ANN page 45 Y K

Thirty-year-old Howard Beach woman Karina Vetrano was sexually assaulted and murdered while jogging in Spring Creek Park in August. The country was horrified by the slaying, which made national headlines. Brooklyn man Chanel Lewis is now on trial for the murder.

Queens mourned the passing of Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, who died in February at 76 years of age. She is remembered as a dedicated advocate for education.

Mayor de Blasio in February revealed his vision for the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a proposed streetcar linking the two boroughs. Funding questions have plagued the plan, and there is no clear answer for when or even if the project will commence.

In a victory for community activists, City Hall withdrew a plan to upzone part of western Flushing in June. Many worried that the proposal would result in working-class tenants being displaced.

Around 200 people attended an August protest against the city Department of Transportion’s Select Bus Service initiative for Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards, which the agency had implemented the year before.

Many in Elmhurst were appalled upon learning in June that state records showed two sex offenders to have lived in the Boulevard Family Residence, the homeless shelter at the former Pan American Hotel.

The city’s plan to house the undomiciled in the Holiday Inn Express in Maspeth ignited a fire of outrage in the neighborhood. Thousands protested. In October 2016, the city moved 30 single men into the hotel.

An attorney named Brian Barnwell attended each anti-shelter Maspeth demonstration. He was running in a Democratic primary against Assemblywoman Marge Markey, who had gone to none of them. The challenger unseated her, winning by nearly a third of the vote, and then cruised to victory in the general election on Nov. 9.

On that same night, Donald Trump shocked Queens and the rest of the country by winning the presidency.

Thousands of borough residents protested the Jamaica Estates native in the wake of his win.

Page 45 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018

2016

2017

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

It was a year of a horrific bus crash in Flushing, a mourned firefighter in Glendale, the arrest of a suspect in a horrific Howard Beach murder and an epic battle for the New York City Council seat in District 30.

In February 20-year-old Brooklyn man Chanel Lewis was charged with the killing of Karina Vetrano after he allegedly gave self-incriminating statements to police. February also saw more than 50 homeless families check into a Comfort Inn in Ozone Park, along with Borough President Melinda Katz proposing that soccer and hockey arenas be built in Willets Point.

April saw a fire displace more than 150 residents at a 94th Street apartment complex in Elmhurst.

In May, Brooklyn and Queens celebrated together when the new first span of the Kosciusko Bridge opened. Oliver Sohngen, head of the Long Island City Academy of Music, was charged with sex trafficking. And hero firefighter William Tolley was mourned after falling off a roof while fighting a blaze in Ridgewood. Tolley was part of Ladder 135 at Firehouse 286 in Glendale.

In June Queens was shaken by charges that two men working for Hezbollah scouted JFK to plan a terrorist attack. The men were Ali Kourani, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon, and Samer El Debek from Dearborn, Mich.

In September, Flushing was shocked when Raymond Mong, a Dahlia Travel & Tour bus driver, sped through a red light in the early morning and hit the back of an MTA Q20 bus turning right onto Northern Boulevard.

Three people including Mong were killed.

And on Nov. 16, nine-year incumbent Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley conceded defeat to challenger Bob Holden. Holden had been handily defeated by Crowley in the Democratic primary before running on the Republican line and claiming victory in the general election.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 15, 2018 Page 46

C M ANN page 46 Y K

Mayor de Blasio Unveils His Vision For Transforming Willets Point

by Ryan Brady

A

new development plan for part of Willets Point was announced in 2018, though at the start of the year, the city’s intentions for the blighted industrial zone weren’t clear.

The City Council had passed a plan in 2008 to build 5,500 Sh dethro ock i ng t he e units of housing in the Iron Triangle, with 1,925 of them stablis June p ned Queen hm reserved for different levels of affordability. The Queens She t h rimar y af te s Count y De ent, Alexa n r runn e n ea s Development Group, a joint venture of Related Compamocra d r ia O i ly w i ng t tic b Th r ca s nies and the Mets-controlled Sterling Equities, was Joh n L ee ot her ins on t he Nove o his lef t on a oss Rep. Joe io- Cor tez u m i b picked as the contractor.

Tony A u r espec t i rgents took ber genera old, progr Crowley in a But the Bloomberg administration flip-flopped Con fer vella, who vely won p out boroug l election. essive platfo r m. also ou ence. Catali belonged to r i ma r ies ag h legislator in 2012, backing a new proposal called “Willets headed sted Assem na Cr uz, t h t he Republ a i n st state s. Jessica Ra West.” A 1.4 million-square-foot mega-mall was Se ef bly wom ic m t Ma ny o Alba ny. a n Ari irst-ever Dre a n-a llied I n n s. Jose Per os a nd to be constructed; the city and QDG said it was d a lt a Q a E e u m s pe ee pinal i Specia necessary to finance the housing component. But n a pri er elected to ndent Demo a nd lized H ns pa rents m m p o c ra i rotest ff a ke t a r y. Sh gh S that changed, too: There were to be only 2,500 e, Ra m ice in New Y t ic cally r he elite insti chool Admis ed t he de B o ork units with just 875 of them affordable. s l a nd Li e t u w ill , a nd La f lective of t h utions – wh sions Test. T asio admini Many in Queens scoffed at the former e s be h t r t e i Queen no k ids. Th public sch e most pup e cit y says ration’s pus mayor’s plan. Ultimately, a group of activists ils a re ool st u t he p o s, whic e oppo h t o abolish licy ch dent b A s ia n h ha s a sition De B led by state Sen. Tony Avella sued to stop the o o a t t Develo la sio a n nou la rge Asia n o t he mayor dy, which ha r white — m nge would h he mega-mall proposal, arguing that it was illegal nc e d i ’s s pment o elp p r a o p e p l h a d u la ig n wa s e n 450 - s e especi her percent mographibecause the Citi Field parking lot — where it at elem Group t hat Febr ua r y t tion. a a g i l h ly i n t e nclude e nt a r y e Bor ou would be built — is technically parkland. nse in of black s 1,100 at t he cit y m s nor t he Pa rk, G g h r esident chool. ad e a a f ford A state Supreme Court justice in 2014 a st s n a le n bi e ble ap a r t m e n w de a l w it h A l s o c d a le a nd C o t t e rly f ou g ht ruled against the plaintiffs. But the move was t o s t l p h la n s f o at Wil s pr e a d n t r o v e r s i a l e g e P o i n t lets Po e Queen s reversed the next year by an Appellate Division r hom e . l p i nt a n le s s s h t o pr e v r o bl e m t h a t w a s Q u e e n s da panel decision, which the developers quickly elt e r s le d t h e r e s id e e nt t h e i n B n Un ited f t. lissv il t s’ o f t e vowed to appeal. They finally lost the legal war The m le, O z o St at e s Po s t a l n n o t g e t t i n g ne opposi ayor’s pla n t in 2017, with the state Court of Appeals finding S e r v ic t o s hu t t io n i n h e i r e to r e t m a i l, a do w n 5-4 that the mega-mall plan was illegal because t he b o of D e t e rof it ol t he R r ou nt d m a i l w id e alienation of parkland requires the state Legislal ive ne ion i n Kew g h. De Bla si i ker s I sla nd b oxe s G o a ja i l a rd r by wa ture’s approval.

I n Nov stau nch ly o en s to hou se nt s to r edeve complex me Since the shopping center was the lynchpin of the tm p lo i n m at e o f i t s e m b e r t h a t A p o s e. s, a n i p t he old Ho ajor whole Willets Point plan, last year’s ruling made the t wo H m a z on dea m u Q a 2 sa ny wh s e leade r future of the Iron Triangle a big question mark. Blocks o s h o p e f a c i l i t i e s i n id i t w o u ld be p to w L on e - c om that used to be filled with auto businesses had been demolm e r c e i n s om e c on g I s l a n d C ut t i n g one ished for a dead redevelopment plan. And nothing was in com m g ia nt t hat ces sion s f r it y. A r ea u n it y, om t h e w ou ld motion to bring life back to them. but he Tasked with figuring out what would come next, de Blasio opp o n t h e pl a n h l p t h e e nt s . as officials had discussions with the QDG. And in February, City Hall announced a new deal for the first phase of the Willets Point redevelopment.

A 450-seat elementary school and 1,100 affordable units would be built on six acres of the 23 designated for the redevelopment’s first phase. Retail and open space were revealed as part of the six-acre plan, too. And in a break with his predecessor Mayor de Blasio is not allowing QDG to keep the land; the developer will lease it.

“This project delivers big on the number-one priority for people in Queens: finding an affordable place to live,” the mayor said in the announcement.

By 2020, the developers are projected to be finished with the environmental remediation part of the project. And 500 of the apartments are expected to be built by 2022.

What will happen to the other 17 acres owned by the city is not yet known. When he revealed his plan in February, de Blasio also announced the creation of the Willets Point Task Force, a group focused on the remaining land.

Borough President Melinda Katz and Councilman Francisco Moya (D-Corona) chair the body, a group of area stakeholders meeting to make recommendations about what should happen on the remaining Phase 1 land. The task force has not publicly said what it wants at the site yet.

However, Katz has in the past expressed her desire to see a soccer stadium or a hockey arena built at Willets Point.

2018

C M ANN page 47 Y K

2006

continued from page 6 city and Queens’ subsidized private bus companies lasted for years and today people argue over Select Bus Service.

The pages of The Paper continued to report on the Green Bus Lines saga long after the 1979 strike was finally settled after four months.

In June of 1981, the bus company, as well as the four other private bus companies operating in Queens, requested approval of a fare increase from the Board of Estimate.

They wanted fares to increase from 60 cents to $1 for local service and from $2 to $3 for express buses. Meanwhile, the MTA was voting to increase city bus and subway fares to $1 a ride.

By 1982, with the fare increase established, the mechanics and inspectors of the Green Bus Lines once again caused commuters to be stranded all over the borough when they struck for several days, demanding a pay increase.

Higher fares and increased pay for private bus company employees did not necessarily lead to better service. For the past 40 years, just as today, the pages of The Paper and then the Queens Chronicle were peppered with complaints about the borough’s surface public transportation.

“The buses run infrequently, do not come on time... bypass waiting commuters ... are too crowded,” said stories in The Paper in Q 1982 through 1984. Sound familiar?

continued from page 36 Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin also ended his political career in disgrace, facing federal racketeering charges.

In August that year, seemingly quiet and kindly Woodhaven bricklayer Matthew Colletta claimed he had “borrowed a gun from Lucifer” in a shooting spree that left one dead and wounded two others. And Howard Beach resident Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci got 15 years for an assault committed against a black man the year before.

In 2006, the state Berger Commission first called for the closure of New Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills. Parents and teachers protested the city’s decision to postpone 12 school construction projects in Queens.

And in a year of great tumult and change, one piece of good news: after years of planning, Mets officials broke ground on a new Q baseball stadium called Citi Field.

2004

2005 continued from page 34 Other stories of note include the 11-month sting operation that culminated in the arrest of 37 drug dealers in Queensbridge; the theft and eventual return of a $1.5 million Jean-Michel Basquiat painting; Gov. George Pataki’s signing of VaSean’s Law on drunken driving fatalities; the end of a multi-million dollar gambling ring being run out of bars in Maspeth and Ridgewood; KeySpan Energy’s finalizing a deal to turn the company’s gas tank site into a park; and the murder of Monica Lozada by her Q boyfriend, Cesar Ascarrunz.

St. Mary’s Community Mausoleum

2007 continued from page 36 so much promise, collapsed down the stretch and missed the playoffs.

A pair of young homeless men were arrested for a crime spree in Flushing Meadows Park, as were a group of five suspects in Howard Beach arrested on vandalism hate crime charges.

Queens residents took a doublewhammy in the form of rising electricity costs and gas prices. Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci, the defendant in another hate crime spoke to the Queens Chronicle from his jail cell after his conviction. Residents still await the outcome of the trial regarding slain orthodontist Daniel Malakov of Forest Hills, gunned down in front of his Q daughter in a suspected hit.

2008 continued from page 37 eastern Queens that summer after police announced they were looking for two serial rapists they believe were responsible for more than a dozen attacks in the area... In development news, the mayor’s $3 billion mixed-use Willets Point project inched closer to reality. The City Council was set to vote on the proposal that would transform the area from car junkyard and streets full of potholes to one with housing, offices, retail space, a hotel and a small convention center.

In October, Mets fans bid adieu to their old stadium and to a potentially winning season. The Mets lost their last game to Milwaukee, precluding post-season play.

Fans said they expected to be priced out of the new stadium, Citi Field, when it opened ... The Queens delegation to City Hall was split on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s successful proposal in October to extend his and other elected officials’ terms of office ... At the end of October, the state selected Delaware North Cos. of Buffalo to operate a new racino at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Eventually that bid failed and in 2010 Resorts World won the rights to build the Q racino.

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72-02 Astoria Boulevard East Elmhurst, NY 11370 718 278- 3240 STMC-067222

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2018

continued from page 34 Sad and surprising memories also captured the borough in 2004. In February, Long Island City’s legendary Scalamandre sold its local mill — a loss historians called tragic. Also, the unveiling of a memorial honoring Queens firefighters who died on Sept. 11 brought back tearful memories.

In August, the federal Environmental Protection Administration said Queens had the most toxic air in the city and a South Ozone Park family was chosen for a house renovation by “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Earlier that month, a tiger scheduled to perform at the Cole Brothers Circus in Forest Park escaped from his cage and onto the Jackie Robinson Parkway, Q causing several car pileups.

Established 1852

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