Queens Chronicle 44th Anniversary Edition

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CONTENTS • Queens Historical Society ................................ 4 • Friends of Maple Grove .................................... 6 • Newtown Historical Society ............................. 7 • Community theater troupes ............................. 8 • Volunteer fire departments..............................10 • Richmond Hill Historical Society.....................11 • Juniper Park Civic Association .......................12 • Bobbi and the Strays .......................................14 • Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays ...16 • Jackson Heights Beautification Group ...........17 • Bayside Historical Society ..............................18 • Queens County Bird Club .............................. 20 • Greater Astoria Historical Society ................. 21 • Friends of Queens Public Library .................. 22

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On the cover, clockwise from center: Helen Day of the Richmond Hill Historical Society and Friends of Maple Grove marches in a parade in one of her historical outfits; a meeting of the Juniper Park Civic Association; Bobbi Giordano of Bobbi and the Strays with one of her charges; the RHHS on parade; and a scene from the Gingerbread Players’ 1980 production of “The Little Sweep,” with Joanna Guinther, Sarah Grant, Henry Grant and, not seen here, Louise Guinther.

Photos by Michael Gannon, center and lower left, Mark Lord and Michael O’Kane / file; and courtesy Louise Guinther

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Page 3 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

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The QHS has its own history, too How the 54-year-old society came to be

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

Flushing residents living near 72nd Road and Kissena Boulevard may pass by the triangle at that intersection almost every day — maybe they have even sat on one of the benches there. Yet they may have no idea who it is named for (or that it’s named for anyone at all).

According to the Department of Parks and Recreation website, the spot is called the Abe Wolfson Triangle.

Though residents may have never heard his name, without Wolfson, the borough may not have gotten one of its most distinguished institutions: the Queens Historical Society.

According to QHS Executive Director Jason Antos the beginnings of the society, in a sense, predate Wolfson.

L. Bradford Prince, a Flushing native and former New York State senator and assemblyman, founded the Flushing Historical Society in 1903. In fact, Antos said that President Theodore Roosevelt was the group’s first honorary board member.

But somewhere down the line, the group disintegrated, Antos said.

“In its beginnings. I’m sure it was extremely active, but towards the mid-’60s, it was kind of like a fledgling historical society,” he said.

However, that doesn’t mean the Flushing Historical Society hadn’t

made its mark. “In its time, it had amassed a large amount of artifacts from Flushing’s Colonial and Civil War past and, early 20th century history,” Antos said.

So when Wolfson, an 18-yearold with a love of Queens history — particularly that of Flushing — decided to start the Queens Historical Society in 1968, he had quite the collection to work with. Antos said that the few remaining members of the Flushing Historical Society ultimately donated the group’s artifacts and materials.

And that was no small collection — Antos said it included hundreds of items.

The Flushing Historical Society’s assemblage of artifacts still accounts for roughly 60 to 70 percent of QHS’s own collection, by Antos’ estimation.

Around that same time, a group known as the Kingsland Preservation Committee had been formed to save the Kingsland Homestead, which then sat at 155th Street and Northern Boulevard. According to Antos, the house — one of few remaining British Colonial-era farmhouses — was in danger of being demolished, as there were intentions to build a shopping center there.

Connie DeMartino, who has worked with the historical society for approximately 40 years now, had just moved to the neighborhood at the time.

“One of the spearhead people was Mary Jane Boldizar, who lived down the hill from there,” DeMartino recalled. “She was

Before the newly founded Queens Historical Society found its permanent home in Kingsland Homestead on 37th QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY ARCHIVES Avenue, the house was moved from Northern Boulevard and 155th Street in 1968. instrumental, along with other members whose homes were there.”

And though the Murray Hill Shopping Center was ultimately built, the committee managed to rescue the house from meeting an untimely end: “The committee saved the house and bought it from the city for $1,” Antos said.

While the group got a bargain on the house itself, finding a new home for it was another matter: Kingsland Homestead was split

Queens Historical Society Executive Director Jason Antos, left, said having a solid home base in the Kingsland FILE PHOTOS Homestead helped motivate people to keep the organization going.

number of environmental projects into three pieces and driven down at Queens College and Flushing Northern Boulevard, then south to Meadows Corona Park, even its current site on 37th Avenue. founding the Flushing Meadows DeMartino remembers watching that process with her young Park Action Committee, which called for the cleanup of Flushing children.

“They were fascinated — my River and Flushing Bay. By his 21st birthday in 1971, son saw ambulances, fire trucks, police cars,” she said. “The street Wolfson had accomplished quite a bit. For his birthday, he was closed, and you saw traveled to Montana to this house being moved learn how to fly a Cesdown the block.”

HOUSE sena. He crashed into a She added that one AND HOME hill, and died as a committee member was result of his injuries, in construction, and that according to Antos. he had orchestrated the Despite Wolfson’s house’s division. The life being cut short, three pieces were ultimately put back together at its new the Queens Historical Society lived on. spot in Weeping Beech Park.

“They became a 501(c)(3), they That land, owned by the Parks start getting funding, building a Department, previously had a house on it, which had since been membership — you had people destroyed, DeMartino said. The who were committed to this thing,” Antos said. “I think the department allowed the committee to put the house there, and it has fact that there was now a physical location, that was a good motivastayed put ever since.

The preservation of the King- tion to say, ‘No, we’ve got to keep sland Homestead, Wolfson’s inter- this thing going.’”

That work seems to have paid est in founding a historical society and the donation of the Flushing off; the Queens Historical Society collection together made for the celebrated its 54th anniversary this perfect storm, Antos told the year, and is housed in the Kingsland Homestead to this day.

Chronicle.

For more information on the From there, the Historical Society was able to grow. Though not Queens Historical Society and its much is known about Wolfson, programming, go online to Q Antos said he also contributed to a queenshistoricalsociety.org.

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Alive with memory and culture

Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery foster community

by Michael Gannon Senior News Editor

Where in Queens can one find musical concerts and exhibits featuring borough artists — and talk to local residents who date back to the 19th century?

You may not have guessed Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens.

The Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery, founded in 2005, uses the grounds, the stories of those interred and the Victorian-style Center at Maple Grove to bring culture and history to life.

“Part of the mission of Friends of Maple Grove is to bring the community together, and to bring the community in to enjoy cultural events, whether it’s music, the arts, workshops or to honor the history of these who are buried here,” said Helen Day, vice president of the Friends. “And we feel we are very successful.”

She says the artists and musicians often are the best source of contact for other artists and performers who can visit in the future.

Friends President Carl Ballenas is a retired history teacher. He said the 65-acre cemetery was founded n 1875.

“We have 117,000 stories here,” he said. “Over the years I came to understand that we have become a historical society. The people, the volunteers are all lovers of history.

We are at the heart of Queens.

What Green-Wood Cemetery is to Brooklyn, I want Maple Grove to

become for Queens. And I think we have done it, even though we are on a small scale. We have become an important cultural center for the people of Queens.”

The cemetery is the final resting place for veterans of the War of 1812 and victims of the 9/11 attacks. There are Civil War veterans, former slaves and one victim of the Son of Sam serial killer from the 1970s.

Ballenas began visiting the cemetery because he lived nearby and found it to be a peaceful, restful setting. Then one day he saw the name Theodore Archer on a headstone, and wondered if he had to do with Archer Avenue in Jamaica.

“Sure enough, later in life when I was doing some research at the cemetery, I saw they were connected.” The street also intersects with Sutphin Boulevard.

“And John Sutphin is buried about 10 feet from Theodore Archer,” Ballenas said.

Day first got connected with the group because of her friendship with Ballanas from their time with the Richmond Hill Historical Society. Ballenas became friends with Linda Mayo Perez, former head of the cemetery, as he became interested in using Maple Grove as a tool to teach his students at Immaculate Conception Catholic Academy in Jamaica.

Wanting to build on his students’ reports on historic figures obtained “by hitting the print button” in the early days of the internet, Ballenas soon had them memorizing one minute speeches about their lives.

Students from the Kew Forest School and their teacher, Narge Abar, visit the grave of former slave Millie Tunnell, who received a headstone 125 years after she passed.

The lives of famous, noteworthy and important residents of Queens are re-enacted when volunteers with the Friends PHOTOS BY CARL BALLENAS of Maple Grove Cemetery don period dress in the frequent Spirits Alive presentations.

Ballenas said Perez was receptive to his proposal that they could do the same for the public in presentations recreating the lives of historic Queens figures in Maple Grove.

“She said, ‘Let’s learn the stories of the people here. We buried them and we take care of them.’”

That led to a costume night for parents, which led directly to “Spirits Alive,” a regular presentation during which volunteers dress as historic figures in the cemetery.

Many in the beginning were Ballenas’ students — they dressed in period costumes.

Day said one of her favorites to portray is Mary Dennler.

“She was the wife of a Civil War surgeon who served at a hospital in Washington, DC,” Day said. “Both came from upstate New York, and when the Civil War was declared he signed up with the Union Army.

Back then the wives went with the husbands, especially in a prestigious position like that.”

Dennler served as her husband’s nurse and assistant, and often would walk the hospital wards at night checking on wounded soldiers.

President Abraham Lincoln also would visit with the men.

Dennler and her husband eventually moved to Long Island City.

She headed many clubs and associ-

ations and gave many talks, with and granite stone on her grave.”

He said Maple Grove is as her stories chronicled in local diverse a cemetery as can exist. newspapers.

“We are nonsecterian, with all “This is how we know her stories,” Day said. “They were sup- faiths and all religions,” Ballenas posed to be at Ford’s Theater the said. “Walk around and you’ll find night Lincoln was shot. But they a cross and a Star of David. We gave up their tickets because they have Guyanese tombstones, Chinese tombstones. It’s so had visitors and wanted to spend fascinating.” time with them.”

And his own curiosity still She died in 1935.

Ballenas said the Friends make, allows Ballenas, the history teacher, to learn. rent and buy costumes that the reWhile he had walked the cemeeneactors wear. tery countless times, he recently One very popular community came across the headstone at the activity that returned on Halloween Weekend was “Trunk or Treat,” a grave of one Susan Monroe Stowe.

Ballenas wondered if the grave safe, family-friendly event that also functioned as a collection for the from the early 1900s might have to do with Harriet Beecher River Fund food pantry Stowe, the author of in Richmond Hill.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Another historic figGRAVE Sure enough, it was ure buried at Maple Grove, Ballenas said, is CONCERNS t h e f a m e d a u t h o r ’ s daughter-in-law, who Millie Tunnell, who was lived in the Kew Garborn a slave on a plantadens-Forest Hills area tion near that of George in the late 1800s and Washington, whom she early 1900s. Her hussaw on occasion.

“She died at age 111, and every band, who also originally had a burial plot there, remarried and year after her 100th birthday moved out west. reporters would visit to find out “What I love about this place is about her. That’s how we know her that you can be walking along and story.”

But Tunnell did not have a head- see a name on a grave and something just touches you, and you stone until recently.

“One-hundred twenty-five years say, ‘I want to find out who this Q after her death, we placed a bronze person is.’”

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Small group has some big victories Newtown Historical Soc. perseveres

by Michael Gannon

land Park on the Queens-Brooklyn border. It provided Brooklyn with water until 1959, and Basin 2 served as a backup supply for the borough from 1960 to 1989. The site was transferred to the Parks Department in 2004.

Christina Wilkinson is a veteran observer of history and “The city had plans to basically destroy all the habitats in civic engagement in Queens. But the president of the Newtown the basins of the reservoir for active recreation,” Wilkinson Historical Society was surprised recently when considering the said. “And we fought this. In a nutshell we did a lot of advocaorganization’s own history.

“I’m actually kind of shocked we’ve already been around for cy work. We got in touch with a wetlands delineator, which sounds like kind of a strange title, but this person was actually 15 years,” she told the Chronicle. an expert in what constitutes wetlands.

The group has no building, few artifacts and not even an “He went down into the basins and marked out executive director. But it still can pack a punch, and which areas had wetlands. He also described what has on more than one occasion.

HISTORY type ... because all three basins have different types “It was co-founded by me and a few others back of wetlands that have different types of plant life in 2007,” Wilkinson recalled. “We were in the middle of trying to save St. Savior’s Church at the time AND MORE and support different types of wildlife. It would have been a shame to lose that. Wetlands are very and it sort of dawned on us that we really didn’t important for number of reasons. But to have that have an organization that was preservation-focused biodiversity right here in the area ... you can’t just for Maspeth, Middle Village all the towns that were walk down the street to a pond. It’s a unique spot, part of Newtown So we wanted to bring the issues and we knew it needed to be preserved. Sort of upgraded, but to the forefront. Obviously we started with St. Savior’s.”

Built in 1847, the Maspeth church was targeted for the mostly intact.”

Wilkinson said the site, and its eventual reuse, proved to wrecking ball. It now sits in storage trailers as civic and preserhave a little something for everyone. vation groups seek funding and a site to rebuild it.

“If you’re interested in history, it’s an amazing story of how “We moved on to other projects,” Wilkinson said. “The big it was built. If you’re interested in nature, then that’s the place one was the Ridgewood Reservoir in Highland Park. That was to go and see it. And it also does provide some active recreprobably our biggest victory so far.” ation. There’s jogging and some bike paths around it. No matThe reservoir was constructed in 1858 in what is now HighSenior News Editor

Page 7 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

44th Anniversary Edition

The small group packed a big punch when fighting to preserve PHOTO COURTESY NHS St. Saviour’s Church in Maspeth. ter what type of activity you’re interested in, you can go there.”

Getting back to basics, Wilkinson also can tell you exactly what Newtown was and is.

“I love answering that question,” she said. “What you need to do is go back to the original County of Queens — under King George — which included three towns that currently make up Nassau County.” continued on page 23

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Stages have a deep foundation Douglaston, Forest Hills theater groups among the stars

by Mark Lord

the school’s auditorium. The reception was so positive that it led to the formation of a new group, Douglaston Community Theatre, According to the American Association of which continued to perform at that school and then at JHS 67.

Community Theatre, a nonprofit corporation When the Board of Education drastically that serves as the voice of the amateur boards raised its rates for use of the auditorium, in in this country, “Community theater occupies the mid-1960s, DCT moved to its permanent a peculiarly important position in the Amerihome at the rebuilt Zion Church. can theater picture.”

In addition to many loyal fans, who return It’s an idea that reflects the thoughts of many of those individuals whose voices have time and again to see productions, the group has an impressive number of long-time been heard on our local stages, as well as those who have found themselves seated on the members.

One of them, Michael Wolf, a mainstay in aisles of our neighborhood’s theaters.

Queens community theater who is currently AACT further indicates that community one of DCT’s three co-presidents, says that theater “engages more people in theatrical groups such as this are not only “a great asset” activity, albeit part-time, than all the rest of the to the community, but “an integral part” of it.

American theater put together.”

Dr. Twink Lynch, who wrote a book on the And for the actors, “It means everything,” he said. “We love to do this. We have to love it. subject entitled “Boards in the Spotlight,” sugThere’s little or no remuneration.” gests that “the beginnings of community theHe pointed out in a recent telephone interater in the United States are not well recorded.” view that around the time DCT was founded, But she points out that amateur theatricals Calvin Coolidge was president of the United William Gross and Dolly Guinther perform in the Gingerbread Players’ production of “Hansel and existed even during the Colonial and RevoluStates and Jack Dempsey was heavyweight Gretel” in 1974. tionary War times.

PHOTO COURTESY LOUISE GUINTHER One such group, the Footlight Club, was boxing champion of the world. “These are founded in 1877 in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and completely different times,” Wolf said, sugly, values community theater.

Equally varied are the productions offered has been declared by AACT to be the oldest gesting that DCT has evolved considerably by another longstanding local theater group, She recently recalled one of her own earliest since its inception. continuously producing community theater in The Gingerbread Players of St. Luke’s Church theatrical experiences, one which found her “We used to do a musical every spring,” in Forest Hills, whose latest undertaking, sharing a community theater stage with her the U.S. Dating back a few decades less but still a said Barbara Mavro, a member of the group Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” mother. long time, and still going strong, is this bor- since 1979 and another one of its current co- runs Nov. 12 to 20.

“The community really came together,” she ough’s own Douglaston Community Theatre, a presidents. But in recent years, Back in 1971, the church’s remembered. “Theater brings a sense of comthat has become “cost prohibitive,” troupe that traces its roots to the 1920s. munity to a community. It brings awareness organist and choir director, HarriLOCAL DCT’s history has been fairly well docu- she said. et Morin, noted that a member of that there’s more than television and movies. It Still a list of some of its recent mented over the years. According to a 1990 the congregation, Chip Stokes, radiates outward.”

DRAMA productions is diverse and impreswrite-up in a local newspaper, a group called She also appreciates that such theaters are was understudying the title role in sive: Neil Simon’s comedy classic the Church and Drama Association was begun the New York City Opera produc- “very easy to get to, usually quite inexpensive. under the auspices of Zion Episcopal Church. “The Sunshine Boys,” the mystery tion of “Amahl and the Night Vis- And the venues are so small that you feel like a thriller “Deathtrap,” the comic When the church burned to the ground on itors,” and suggested the church part of the action.” play “Blithe Spirit” and Pulitzer Christmas Eve 1924, the troupers began to Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic shut mount a production of their own Prize winner “Driving Miss Daisy,” among hold their meetings at the Douglaston Club, with the young performer as well as other down many theater companies, both profesmany others. Already in the planning stages assuming the name The Douglaston Players. sional and nonprofessional, some temporarily, interested parishioners. Thus, a new theater In 1950, the principal of PS 98 approached is “Prescription: Murder,” the play that group was born. some permanently. While several community inspired the television series “Columbo,” the group about a possible fundraising event, theaters in the borough were forced to bring Louise Guinther, whose father was in the and the play “Life with Father” was put on in scheduled for the spring. chorus of that production of “Amahl,” was down their final curtains, others have managed to re-emerge, welcoming audiences back for recruited to hand out programs for the show, being too young to appear on stage. She’s been much longed-for live performances.

According to Encyclopedia.com, in 1917, involved with the group ever since. there were approximately 50 community the“Community theater is a real social activity,” she said, an opportunity for those involved aters across the country. By 1925, that number “to find out about each other, to check out each swelled to almost 2,000. Today, per AACT, there are about 6,000. other’s talents in a low-pressure environment.”

About a dozen are right here in the borough.

The group sets itself apart by performing not only Shakespeare but the works of other play- In addition to DCT and Gingerbread, the groups back in action following a two-year wrights who are not frequently represented on shutdown include Royal Star Theatre in Jamaicommunity theater stages. Among its past offerings are the Bard’s “Macbeth” and “The ca Estates, St. Gregory’s Theatre Group in BelTaming of the Shrew,” Moliere’s comedy “Le lerose, Maggie’s Little Theater in Middle Village, and a relatively new entry to the scene, Bourgeois Gentilhomme” and musicals includCity Gate Productions, which performs at variing “Babes in Toyland” and “The Boy Friend.” ous venues around the borough.

Community theater is “a chance for kids So, the survival of community theater and grownups to interact,” Guinther said. “The seems assured, thanks to the dedication of the kids often show the grownups up.”

Forest Hills resident Michele Gerrig New- performers and production teams, as well as At left, Stephen Banci, Eliza Smith, Fred Guinther and Louise Guinther in the Gingerbread Playthe audiences who welcome their contributions mark, a theater devotee who sees as many ers’ original “Uncle King Arthur,” 1976. At right, performers in Douglaston Community Theatre’s Q shows as she can, both on Broadway and local- to the community.

PHOTOS COURTESY LOUISE GUINTHER, LEFT, AND DCT 1979 production of “Guys and Dolls.”

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C M ANNY page 10 Y K 44th Anniversary Edition

Fire volunteers fill a crucial gap South Queens depts. protect where others can’t reach

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

Finding volunteer firefighters to serve is harder to do in recent years, but those who start young often stick with it.

When Nick Spinelli’s friend suggested to him that they join the local fire department after graduating high school, Spinelli said, “We don’t live in Long Island, bro. How are we going to do that?”

But there was one right in Hamilton Beach, he learned, and they went to the West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department that night.

It was May 2, 2007.

“I still remember the date,” said Spinelli, who is from Howard Beach. That night, he was able to go to the scene of a fire.

“I got to see how everything operated and it just grabbed me and it felt right. Like the peoThe Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1905. It still operates out of its ple in the firehouse, the family feel of it, the PHOTO COURTESY ED WILMARTH / FILE original site on Noel Road but is fighting for a new location. community, it just felt right. And I kind of hard times, economically. So of course time is never left,” he said. organized in 1928 by community members folmoney and your time is valued but sometimes lowing a deadly house fire, said Spinelli. The Now, he is the chief of the department. you have to work at things.”

In Broad Channel, Rich Bogart is the chief closest responding unit was 15 minutes away.

When people are trained as EMTs, he said, of the volunteer fire department and he, too, “When the tide comes up or we’re getting a they are also being given a potential career. had been turned on to service by a friend at 14 really bad storm and flooding occurs, a lot of “You can go to the FDNY with that card. You the time the city units have issues in their or 15 years old.

“I went and checked it out ... And, 30 years can go and join a private company, work for responses,” he said. “They can’t go through the Jamaica Hospital and other hospitals as an tide waters ... It damages vehicles, shorts out later, here I am,” said Bogart.

EMT,” Spinelli said.

Bogart became chief of the department earelectrical systems. But if we’re already at the Bogart tells young people the same, noting firehouse in Hamilton Beach, we don’t have to lier this year and said getting volunteers in the that many of his members are police officers, door and keeping them is a focus. go through 165th Avenue and 102nd Street FDNY members or sanitation workers.

The Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Departwhere the water at times can be a foot high, In Lindenwood, Chris DeLuca, even without any sort of storm surge.” ment has a junior department for chief of the Lindenwood Volunteer kids ages 12 to 17 and it is part of The WHBVFD operates on a budget of QUEENS Ambulance Corps, said the probthe Boy Scouts Explorer program. $80,000 to $100,000 and answers 300 to 500 lem is usually money or people. fire calls and 250 to 500 EMS calls a year.

“I would say 10 of the last chiefs VOLLIES Right now, he thinks it is the people During the Sept. 11 attacks, its two ambulanchave come from juniors,” said Bogpart. art. “They started out as kids, es responded to the scene and the engine and He, too, knows that times are members covered an FDNY house. learning how to dispatch, learning hard for folks and volunteering is how the fire department works and The BCVFD was founded in 1905 as a not at the forefront as they work bucket brigade, when the only way to get to going through training and then several jobs to make ends meet. working their way up through the ranks and and from the island was by ferry. The goal was “Recruiting is one thing, retaining is anothsticking with it.” to help minimize property loss and lower That’s important amidst a national shortage er,” he said. “Once they get a paying job, little insurance premiums as there was no form of by little, they disappear.” for volunteers, he said. fire protection on the island. In 1907, the briMoney is harder to come by too, especially gade was formally organized into the Broad Bogart is also the vice president of the NYC Volunteer Fireman’s Association, which covers with a budget of $90,000 to $100,000 a year, Channel Volunteer Fire Association under its much of which goes toward insurance. the eight remaining volunteer departments in first chief, Edward Schlueter.

“Utilities have all gone up. Diesel fuel for the city, five of which are in Queens: Broad The current firehouse at 15 Noel Road was the ambulances is off the hook right now,” opened 1908. On June 14th, 1917, Chief ChrisChannel, WestHamilton Beach, Point Breeze, DeLuca said.

Rockaway Point and Roxbury. tian Hoobs died of a heart attack while “Right now we’re probably running about responding to a fire. It was the only line-ofHe said there has been a dramatic decline in three to four nights a week. It’s been probably duty death in the department’s history, accordvolunteer fire service in the last 10 years, estiabout 15, 20 years since we were here seven ing to its website. In 1942, the department mating that there were previously 200,000 voldays, to be quite honest.” unteer firefighters in New York State and that reorganized and became a Civil Defense Unit Broad Channel and West Hamilton Beach under a new name, the Broad Channel Volunthe number has dropped to around 80,000. are the only volunteer Queens firehouses in Spinelli said local recruitment and retenteer Fire Department Emergency Auxiliary which volunteers are not required to be from tion, especially postpandemic, is a focus.

Corps. It was the first in the state to operate on “It really does pain me to say it, but volun- the neighborhood. The West Hamilton Beach a 24-hour basis out of its own firehouse. teering is such a dying breed,” he said. “It department has members from Brooklyn and At its inception, all the men in town were even Staten Island. takes special people to do it.” expected to join, said Bogart. “You were proThe departments, especially in flood-prone He continued, “There are benefits to it but tecting your own home and your neighbors’ the response that I get sometimes is, ‘Yeah, but areas of Queens, serve a special purpose. homes, you know, so everyone turned out.” At The West Hamilton Beach firehouse was I’m not getting paid to do it.’ I get it. We’re in the height of the department, there were 150 to

200 members, he said. Now there are about 30.

For as long as Bogart has been a part of the department, it has been fighting to get a new firehouse built in a more centralized location on Cross Bay Boulevard, near American Legion Post 1404 and the Broad Channel Athletic Club.

The last bid that the department got for a new firehouse came in at a whopping $7.2 million, he said.

“We’re currently working with all the local politicians, again to try to find funding,” Bogart said, and the vollies hope to go to bid again by the new year.

They raise all the funds themselves aside from occasional discretionary funds from local politicians, and hold events like a haunted house this past Halloween and an upcoming Thanksgiving raffle and turkey karaoke event.

The current firehouse at Noel Road was rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy and although it serves the department well and is more resilient than ever, “the fire trucks haven’t gotten any smaller,” Bogart said.

Following Sandy, the houses are more resilient, too, resulting in fewer house fires, he said. Eighty percent of the calls now are medical.

“We tend to focus a little more on potential water rescue calls and potential car accidents.

We generally do get some severe car accidents, so we try to focus on that.”

The department is trying to establish further benefits for members to rival perks on Long Island like free community college.

In Hamilton Beach, Spinelli has a pitch he makes to recruits: “We can provide you with the time, the training, the tools, the guidance, the support and the environment you need to succeed. But you have to be willing to bring the heart and dedication to the table. We cannot provide that to you. We can give you everything that you need to succeed with the department and in life and in this career field.

But you have to bring the heart and the dedicaQ tion. I can’t do that for you.”

The West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1928. FILE PHOTO

C M ANNY page 11 Y K

Preserving Richmond Hill’s legacy Group aids homeowners and much more

by Deirdre Bardolf

torical Society. President Helen Day learned that Otto Siedentopf, a German immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1897 at 5 years old, was a First-time homebuyers Eli and Hillary Dvor- local hero, having joined the police force in 1917 as a mounted officer and being mentioned kin were looking to move from their Ridgein a newspaper for saving a traveler who was wood apartment to a house, happening upon a thrown from his horse and dragged by it. small country cottage on the outskirts of Forest The society was able to advise the Dvorkins Park in North Richmond Hill, perfect to walk on practical matters, too, as they applied for a their newborn through the pandemic.

They could feel that the home had been tax incentive that would help them preserve the “well-loved,” said Eli, thoughtfully designed historical integrity of the home.

“As we fell in love with the with large windows that bathed it neighborhood and the home, we with light. He wanted to learn more HISTORIC realized there are folks, our neighabout the space and started with who feel similarly and are city Department of Building HELPERS bors, there for moral support and, in records. some cases, also practical support,” He found the original owners, said Dvorkin.

Otto and Emma Siedentopf, built That is just some of the work that the home in 1925 after leaving the historical society, founded in Ridgewood with their 1-year-old.

1997, does. Past president and founding mem“It was a little eerie, but it was like a century ber Ivan Mrakovcic, who passed away in 2020, later and the story was repeating itself — a was an architect, historian and preservationist family growing for the first time, trying to find who would help homeowners with restorations. a little more breathing room in the big city and something that was also still relatively afford- He fought upzoning the area, too, to preserve the historic homes, many of which were built in able,” Dvorkin said. the late 1800s and early 1900s, some in the Then, he turned to the Richmond Hill HisAssociate Editor

Queen Anne Victorian style. Mrakovcic was honored last weekend at the historical society’s 25th anniversary dinner dance, along with Patricia Winters, current principal of the Holy Child Jesus Catholic Academy, where many of the society’s events and meetings are held.

The society holds four open meetings a year, offering presentations or featuring books, and it also hosts tours. Board member William Gaddy is a historic architecture tour guide.

The society has a museum located in the Leo F. Kearns Funeral Home on 115th Street, replete with yearbooks from Richmond Hill High School, including one from its first year in 1900, maps that date back to 1901 and postcards of streetscapes that reflect the original names before efforts to number them for postage purposes. Vice President Carl Ballenas, a historian and author, donated from his collection rare postcards, sheet music from composer Ernest Ball, who wrote the music for “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and lived in Richmond Hill for a time, and compiled a montage of photos of nearly all of the soldiers from Richmond Hill who died in World War I. In the museum are also 14 diaries from a woman who lived near 85th Avenue and 116th Street and wrote

The home that Ivan Mrakovic lived in.

PHOTO COURTESY RICHMOND HILL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

about social happenings, said Day, as well as the influenza pandemic of 1918.

The society is getting back into the swing of things following this pandemic, she said. “We want to do more research on local homes and the people that live there and tell their stories.”

Day plans also to mount plaques, one for the Lefferts farmhouse on 115th Street and others throughout the neighborhood commemorating its designation to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. For more information including events, visit the society on Facebook Q or at richmondhillhistory.org.

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C M ANNY page 12 Y K 44th Anniversary Edition

Juniper Civic is a world a-park From graffiti cleanups to fighting City Hall, the JPCA’s ready

by Michael Gannon Senior News Editor

It’s not hard to get Tony Nunziato, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, to brag just a little about what the group does, which is more than one might think.

“We run the Juniper Juniors,” he said.

“We clean up graffiti. We clean the side streets. If there are any problems, we reach out to all city agencies to make sure they’re taken care of. We do five to six summer concerts, the Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades. We make sure the community is taken care of.”

And yes, Nunziato said, the civic also makes sure the 55-acre park is maintained as a green oasis for active and passive recreation for all ages.

The group as it exists today was founded in 1938 as Queens prepared for the World’s Fair. Councilman Bob Holden (D-Maspeth) served as president of the JCPA, one of the largest civic associations in the state, for Juniper Valley Park under construction in August nearly 25 years before being elected to the central Queens.

Council in 2017. a big mouth. I said, ‘This is ridiculous.’”

He said the area had been a mix of farmHe also said a lot more. land and developing communities in the early “So after the meeting the leadership came 20th century. up to me and said ‘We need you.’”

“My mother grew up around the corner And a civic star was born. from where I live now. My grandfather built “I served 25 years as vice president and three homes, each multifamily, so everybody grew up together. They told me there were a president,” he said. “I’d always been involved in the neighborhood with things like Little lot of farms everywhere, and my grandfather League and neighborhood cleanups. But this had a flower farm. There were a lot of cemetime I was joining a bigger teries, so my family had a florist organization.” business ... My grandfather bought ACTIVE A serendipitous benefit came to in this area because he saw the the Juniper Berry, the civic’s quarpotential. The park came first, and CITIZENRY terly publication, which began in PS 49 was there before the park,” 1940. Holden, a graphic design Holden said. “You had a housing professor for four decades, was explosion in the ’30s.” able to make the good even better.

Developers came up with their “Since I was a graphic designer, own names for the new tracts of I took it over when I became president,” he housing, such as Juniper Park, which Holden said. “ I thought ‘Boy this is a great way to said did not stick; and Liberty Park in Glencommunicate. I could build the civic, build dale, which did.

The Juniper Park Homes Civic Associa- up the name recognition and build up the tion merged with the Eliot Avenue Civic membership by doing this magazine.’”

Usually the JPCA president did not handle Association in 1938.

Holden said he had known about the civic the Juniper Berry hands-on. But with Lorraine Sciulli editing as well as writing many association, and that his wife’s aunt, Lorraine articles, he said the periodical at its peak had Sciulli, was a very active member. a print run of about 10,000, though it is down He did not become active himself until back in the mid-1980s, when the state began to about 5,000 now.

Nunziato said he too had come to the civic widening the Long Island Expressway.

“They kept closing the LIE in the wee in a roundabout way. He had known Holden hours,” he said. “Trucks would spin out into through Community Board 5 and other civic our neighborhood. I couldn’t sleep at night activities.

The JPCA president said the group now because I had 18-wheelers coming down has a good roster of longtime volunteers and these back streets and they couldn’t get out.

The streets were so narrow. So you’d hear all what he said is a small group of young newthis commotion at 2 in the morning and I’d comers that he hopes keeps right on growing.

He said it is all about building and caring have to go out and direct traffic.

“My wife’s aunt said, ‘You should go to for the community. And he said being a the Juniper Park Civic and tell them what’s native or newcomer to the region can be a going on.’ So I went to the meeting and I had question of just whom one might ask.

of 1937. It would quickly become a jewel of PHOTOS COURTESY JPCA

“What makes a native?” he asked. “Nunziato’s, a florist, started in 1911 in Woodside.

My family was in the florist and mausoleum business. My grandfather started a stonecutting business in Maspeth in about 1915 to 1920.” His grandparents had 11 children, all of whom went on to leadership positions in the civic and business communities.

“I got married and moved to Maspeth in 1980. That’s 42 years. So am I a native? I don’t know. This area was one of the original settlements for the British. Some families have been here for five generations.”

His own florist business has been in Maspeth since 1986.

Nunziato said while he always has been active in he community, he became seriously involved with the JPCA when he and other residents and the organization became determined to turn the site of the old Elmhurst gas tanks — famed in song and story and decades’ worth of news radio station rushhour traffic reports — into a park.

He said he and Holden really clicked when the JPCA took on the fight in what he believes is the organization’s proudest moment.

“They said it was a done deal, that it was going to be a Home Depot; that’s it, and there was no way it was going to be a park for the community,” he said. “Keyspan owned it ...

And there was some big money and big politicians behind it, saying it was going to go through.”

If the players thought they were dealing with civic association folks whose interests stopped with getting the grass mowed in the park, they could have not been more wrong.

Nunziato said JPCA volunteers put up posters, banners, billboards and never stopped applying pressure, be it in civic

meetings or at City Hall.

“We did everything,” he said. “I remember going out with Bob at 2 in the morning and dangling upside down over roads to hang signs to make sure people got the message.

They did. And we got it.”

The city eventually obtained the property for the sum of $1.

“Today, when I go through that park I see the memorial to [area residents] who were killed in Vietnam ... I see all the people in the park. It’s an accomplishment beyond belief.”

Nunziato said an incomplete victory, but a win nonetheless, was the ability of the civic and preservationists to disassemble the old St. Saviour’s Church in Maspeth and store it in trailers until they can find the money and a site to reassemble the 19th-century structure that was removed in 2002.

Nunziato said once again, it was a triumph of community, with people such as himself, Holden, Newtown Historical Society president Christina Wilkinson and others, all with different backgrounds, personalities and ways of approaching a problem.

“Put us in a centrifuge and it works out,” he said. “The results were unbelievable.”

It was shortly after Holden was elected to the City Council that he recruited Nunziato to serve as the JCPA’s new president, arriving at the florist shop with everything needed for the job in a bag.

“Bob came to my store and said, ‘I want you to be the new president.’ I said, ‘No thank you.’ He left the bag with the phone and a thank-you note. When you have someone who leaves the Juniper Park phone on your counter and says, ‘You’re the only one who can do it,’ and leaves, what can you do?

All I saw was the back of his suit running out of my store.”

Comprehensive information on the JPCA Q is available online at junipercivic.com.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, future Councilman Bob Holden, right, and Tony Nunziato, rear, in 2005 at the announcement for the future Elmhurst Park.

C M ANNY page 13 Y K

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Bobbi offers haven for abandoned pets ‘It’s not enough,’ says founder

by Sean Okula

She can’t remember the exact age she started rescuing animals, but Giordano says she was between 10 and 12 years old. She found a litter of kittens that someone had abandoned in Bobbi Giordano started sheltering animals when she was a preteen. Some years — she a lot and took them back to her childhood home to care for them. Her mother had no declined to share her age on the record — and thousands of cats and dogs saved later, she’s qualms.

“It was no problem,” she said. “I got a job left with one feeling.

“It’s not enough,” she said. “It’s just not when I was very young, and all of the money went toward boarding them.” enough.

Generally no more than four at a time, the “I just wish I could do more. I wish I had animals had free rein over the household until more years ahead of me.”

Bobbi and the Strays, with locations in Giordano managed to find them homes. As an adult, she ran a clothing store on Freeport, LI, and Glendale, is a Staten Island, never turning her cats-and-dogs adoption center and ANIMAL back on the animals in need. shelter that has been in operation as “Every time I made money, I’d a not-for-profit since 1998, though LOVERS go pay the vets or board the dogs at rescuing animals is Giordano’s selfpeople’s homes,” she said. proclaimed life’s work and has been She sold the clothing store and at least something of a side pursuit took up sheltering animals fullsince her preteen days. time in 1998, gaining nonprofit The organization has rescued 1,690 cats and 2,371 dogs since June 2009 and status with the help of then-state AssemblyJanuary 2009, respectively, though that’s only member Audrey Pheffer. In 2007, she moved to the space in Glendale, within The Shops at as far back as their records go. The real numAtlas Park mall. For a period of time, the bers, Giordano says, exceed those figures by organization occupied the space without havthousands.

Associate Editor

Bobbi Giordano, center with scissors, cuts the ribbon on her shelter location at The Shops at PHOTO BY EVE GAGNON Atlas Park in January 2007. ing to pay rent.

“Now I pay, but I don’t pay a lot,” she said.

“The mall has been exceptionally good to us,” she added.

The Glendale space has the capacity for 12 dogs and 12 cats at any given time. The Free-

port space has room for bigger dogs and contains cat rooms.

Like a concerned mother, Giordano’s priority is making sure the animals have a loving home, whether that be in her shelter or with a continued on page 23

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A family history key to gay rights Manford’s public defense of her son led to PFLAG

by Mark Lord Chronicle Contributor

From a letter to a march to a meeting to a movement ... this is how one mother’s love for her son led to the formation of PFLAG, the first and largest organization in this country that unites parents, families and friends with members of the LGBTQ+ community.

One day in 1972, Flushing native Jeanne Manford was at home with her husband, Jules, when she received a telephone call from a hospital informing her that her son, Morty, had been beaten at a gathering in Manhattan while distributing leaflets to raise awareness of gay rights.

Manford, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Queens College and became an elementary school teacher at PS 32, where she remained for 26 years, responded with a letter of protest to the New York Post in which she complained of a lack of action by the police.

In part, the letter stated, “I have a homosexual son and I love him.”

That simple public admission, no small act at the time, sparked a tremendous response from readers and went a long way in drawing Jeanne Manford and her son, Morty, walk in the New York Pride March in 1972. Among those attention to the movement that her son had behind them is Dr. Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and author, in white shirt and tie. been supporting.

The sign Manford bears is preserved at the New York Public Library. PHOTO COURTESY NYC COUNCIL / FILE Two months later, mother and son participatover 200,000 members in all 50 states. ed in the New York Pride March, forerunner of and they would be so proud to have their names For Jeanne Manford’s efforts in co-founding carved on this important part of the city.” the annual Gay Pride Parade. Jeanne Manford the organization, then-President Barack Obama carried a hand-lettered sign that read, “Parents Swan, in turn, is proud of her parents and of Gays: Unite in Support of Our Children.” So awarded her, posthumously, in 2013, the Presi- brother. Speaking by telephone recently from dential Citizens Medal. significant did that sign become that it is preher home in California, she suggested that her “She ... took to the streets with a simple mes- mother “didn’t anticipate” the importance of her served in the Manuscripts and Archives Divisage: No matter who her son was, no matter sion of the New York Public Library. actions. “But when she realized she could have who he loved, she loved him,” Obama said.

She was asked by many in attendance at the an effect, she worked even harder,” she said.

It was but one of many honors bestowed march to speak to other parents, leading to the The full impact of her mother’s influence on upon the Manford family. formation of a parental organization that the gay movement really hit home for Swan In June 1991, Jeanne Manford, who died in one year when she was in Europe during Pride became known, fittingly, as Parents of Gays, 2013 at the age of 92, served as grand marshal Month. “They don’t have PFLAG there,” she which held its first formal meeting on March 11, 1973 in Greenwich Village, with approxi- of the New York City Gay Pride March. Two said, but “they were able to march because my years later, she served in the same capacity for parents marched.” The realization, she said, left mately 20 individuals in attendance. That led to the first Gay Pride Parade in the founding of PFLAG (an acroher in tears.

Queens. nym for Parents and Friends of LesAs for Morty, who would become assistant PRIDE AND On April 26, 2014, members of New York State attorney general and who died bians and Gays) later that year, its family were forever memorial- in 1992 of AIDS at the age of 41, Swan said, mission “to create a caring, just, and PARADES the ized as part of the borough’s history “He would be proud” of the strides made in the affirming world for LGBTQ+ peowhen 171st Street between 33rd and LGBTQ+ community. “He would have pushed ple and those who love them.”

35th avenues in Flushing was co- it a lot further. His teachers told my mother he According to PFLAG.org, “The named “Jeanne, Jules, Morty Manpower of PFLAG was born from the should be a senator.” ford PFLAG Way,” next to the unified front of the family. It is the She remembered her brother as being “popschool where Jeanne taught. unified front of LGBTQ+ people, parents, famiular, strong-minded. He posted notices wherevAnd on May 20, 2017, the Jackson Heights er gay people met. He would have had laws lies and non-family allies that continues to fuel Post Office, located at 78-02 37 Ave., was passed for federal rights. We lost a lot when we PFLAG 50 years later.” renamed the Jeanne and Jules Manford Post The organization will be celebrating its 50th lost Morty.”

Office Building. anniversary in 2023.

Perhaps surprisingly, according to Swan, her “All they did was to love their child and brother didn’t voluntarily come out to his parThe national organization, PFLAG National, provides support to a network of local chapters stand up for what they knew to be rightful,” ents. “Somebody told on him,” she said. “He said the Manfords’ daughter, Suzanne Swan, at across the country, now numbering around 400, couldn’t believe his parents would love him. the ceremony, as reported in the Queens Morty had no way of knowing. It’s still not easincluding one in Queens, which meets every Chronicle. third Sunday every month at 2 p.m. at The ily accepted.”

“They fought for [Morty’s] right to be who Reform Temple of Forest Hills (71-11 112 St.) She recalled that her father did, in fact, have he was ... in a time when people didn’t under- a hard time accepting his son as gay, blaming For further information on the Queens chapter, stand,” she said. “They took it upon themselves himself for having done something wrong in visit pflag-queens.org or call (718) 858-9678.

It is estimated that PFLAG currently has to educate people. My parents loved New York raising him.

“But he sat with Morty’s friends; he enjoyed them. He accepted Morty wholeheartedly,” she said.

Jules, a dentist, died in 1982 at the age of 63.

Someone who knew the Manfords quite well is former City Councilman Daniel Dromm, who served from 2010 to 2021. Like Jeanne Manford, he had been a public school teacher, promoting teaching acceptance of LGBTQ individuals through the Rainbow Curriculum.

Dromm also founded the Queens LGBTQ Pride Parade in 1993.

“Morty was the inspiration for Jeanne, and Morty himself took huge risks by coming out and fighting,” Dromm said at the post office renaming ceremony.

To this day, Dromm keeps a letter he received from Morty in 1974 asking Dromm to continue to fight against homophobia.

In a recent telephone interview, Dromm described Morty as being “very nice, humble, smart and a real grassroots activist, with only the interest of the community at heart.”

Were Morty alive today, Dromm imagined, “He would acknowledge the success we have made,” but would likely stress that “there is a long way to go, especially with the youth and getting them to be happy with themselves.”

Half of the homeless young people on the streets of New York City are gay and rejected by their families, Dromm said. “Jeanne would work on that,” he added.

It was Jeanne, in fact, who asked Dromm to help start a PFLAG chapter in Queens.

“It was appropriate that it started in Jeanne’s home because it was about families,” he said.

“What Jeanne did was to make us visible. That visibility is so important.”

For further information on PFLAG NYC or to get involved, call (646) 240-4288. ConfidenQ tial Helpline number is (212) 463-0629.

Jeanne Manford, left, Daniel Dromm and Dromm’s mother, Mary Audrey Gallagher, at a PHOTO COURTESY DANNY DROMM 1994 event.

C M ANNY page 17 Y K Page 17 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

44th Anniversary Edition

35 years of standing up for J. Heights Priorities change with progress

by Sean Okula

Cable company in the early to mid-2000s and the expansion of Travers Park, completed in 2019, as examples of the organization’s influence over the years.

More than three decades in, the Jackson Time Warner Cable had placed what resiHeights Beautification Group’s priorities may have changed over the years, but that’s only dents came to call “green monsters” on Jackson Heights streets. The devices were described by because of the progress it has made.

Founded in 1988, the group lists a number of Westley as “receiving and outgoing stations,” community accomplishments on its website, and residents thought them an eyesore.

The JHBG took up the cause of moving including the opening of schools, launch of programs and development of neighborhood spac- them underground, like the rest of the utilities in the area. After then-Councilman es. Board President Leslie Ellman John Sabini expressed little interest says the accomplishments of her predecessors have made it such that ADVOCACY in joining in the fight, the organization fought the battle on its own, the organization can now focus on GROUPS getting it to the point where thenupkeep, rather than revival.

Borough President Claire Shulman “Now the issues are more like, helped adjudicate a resolution: The rather than always focusing on devices would be moved undercleaning something up, it’s about ground in the neighborhood’s hismaintaining it or making it better, toric district only. or advocating with city agencies and electeds “That was a compromise, and we accepted for resources,” she said. “It’s kind of changed that compromise,” Westley said. from picking something up in a bad place to Some years later, the Garden School, a prikeeping it nice.”

To get to that point, former President Ed vate institution located on 79th Street, was looking to sell some of its land to a developer Westley had to win certain battles. He highlighted discussions with the Time Warner hoping to build an apartment complex.

Associate Editor

Summer Sundays in the Park is one JHBG initiative.

Through the advocacy of the JHBG and the Jackson Heights Green Alliance, another organization in the area, and pressure from elected officials, the school instead decided to sell the land to the city, which used it to expand nearby Travers Park.

The deal was completed in 2012, and the park expansion opened three years ago.

“It was a whole community response,” Westley said. “Everybody was involved.”

Though he no longer holds the title of president, Westley, who has been the top executive for approximately 15 of the group’s 35 years,

FILE PHOTO BY CESAR BUSTAMENTE

remains involved in the organization. He says they plan to soon hold strategy sessions on the 34th Avenue open street, which has been the cause of some community consternation.

Ellman said the organization will soon begin planning for its 35th anniversary celebration, coming up next year.

“It’s amazing to think that for 35 years this has been a consistent force in the neighborhood,” she said. “Then to think, how many cycles of different electeds have gone through, and still this organization is here, still doing Q that work.”

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022 Page 18

C M ANNY page 18 Y K 44th Anniversary Edition

Saviours of classic architecture Bayside Historical Society dates to 1964

by Peter Kropf

Pond and Fort Totten. The society’s vision was soon realized.

In 1967 the Lawrence Cemetery was desig1964 gave Queens The Beatles at Kennedy nated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Alley Airport, the Mets at Shea Stadium and the World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Pond Environmental Center was established in 1972. And, also in the early 1970s, the Castle at Park. Before it all, in January of that year, the Bayside Historical Society was founded by a Fort Totten (aka the Fort Totten Officers’ Club) was declared a city landmark. The Castle was neighborhood icon who wore many hats. listed on the State and National Historian. Teacher. Activist.

Registers of Historic Places in 1986, Preservationist. Joseph H. Brown ART AND and by 1999 the entire Fort Totten was a busy man. However, his main District was recognized focus was protecting and beautifyARCHIVES Historical by the city as a landmark. Brown, ing his beloved Bayside, as well as who died in 1974, saw much of his highlighting its rich history. He had work come to fruition. Fittingly, the helped form several committees, Castle became the Bayside Historisuch as the Bayside Beautification cal Society’s headquarters in 1984 Committee, to achieve this. Like and has been its home ever since. streams into a river, the committees led to the In more recent decades, the nonprofit orgaformation of the Bayside Historical Society. nization has increasingly advocated for the Brown was its first president. preservation of historic structures and old At first, the organization was a small group of residents. Sometimes it held meetings at houses. “We were losing beautiful homes in members’ houses. This early version of the Bayside, especially the Victorian houses,” Paul DiBenedetto, president of the Bayside HistoriBayside Historical Society fought primarily for cal Society, regrettably recalls. “That’s what the preservation and restoration of three major first got me involved.” With the help of politisites in the area: the Lawrence Cemetery, Alley Chronicle Contributor

For the latest newsEDITION visit qchron.com 44TH ANNIVERSARY • 2022

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cians and various groups, the society has had numerous preservation victories throughout its history. DiBenedetto believes three stand out.

In 2004 a unique 1905 cobblestone house at 35-34 Bell Blvd. was given landmark status by the city. The Hawthorne Court apartment complex on 43rd Avenue and 216th Street, “an outstanding example of 1930s Tudor architecture” according to DiBenedetto, was landmarked in 2015. And in 2016, the Ahles House at 39-24 213 St. (built by the Bell family in 1873) also attained landmark status.

It’s always been a team effort — the organization has collaborated with the Bayside Business Improvement District and the Bayside Business Association, and partnered with local politicians. “[Former state Sen.] Frank Padavan had used his connection to state government to get us capital grants,” DiBenedetto notes gratefully. “And [Assemblyman] Ed Braunstein [D-Bayside] and [former state Sen.] Tony Avella have been supportive.”

Aside from its renowned winter art show and other community events, the BHS is known for its extensive archival repository, which includes myriad documents and vintage photographs. Authors and researchers such as

The Castle at Fort Totten, home of the Bayside Historical Society since 1984, is one of the sites the organization helped get landmarked.

PHOTO COURTESY PAUL DIBENEDETTO

Donna Barron, Jason Antos, Alison McKay, Kevin Walsh and Louis Duro have culled the archives to inform their work.

Archival material has also been used to host in-depth exhibits and hands-on educational programs. DiBenedetto estimates that “tens of thousands” of students have visited the Castle Q on school field trips over the years.

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Page 19 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022 Page 20

C M ANNY page 20 Y K 44th Anniversary Edition

Bird club took wing 90 years ago Tradition and technology each find a perch at QCBC

by Peter Kropf

Inc. describes itself as a “non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization” and offers much more than it did in Before the early 20th century, 1932. The club hosts informative lectures and presentations from top most birdwatching in America was avian experts and authors, and places done through a gunsight. Hunting birds was common sport and the more emphasis on the understanding fashion industry coveted their of birds’ environmental needs. For example, current birding trips are not feathers.

By the 1920s, however, many just about birds — some time is also spent learning about other fauna and began to drop their rifles and shotguns in favor of binoculars. Avian flora that the group comes across.

Birdwatchers need birds to watch. appreciation, fueled by a wave of The QCBC has thrived for nearly a conservationism, was popularized by birding icons such as Ludlow century because the borough is perfect for the hobby. Queens has more Griscom of the American Museum of Natural History. Griscom, a New green space than any other borough York City native nicknamed the and features habitats — forests, “dean of the birdwatchers,” demon- fields, lakes, marshes and seashores — that attract a wide variety of feathstrated that birds have unique aesered flyers. Alley Pond Park, Cunthetic value.

It didn’t take long for Queens to ningham Park, Kissena Park, Forest Park, Fort Tilden, Jacob Riis Park catch the birding bug; the Queens County Bird Club was formed in and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge 1932. Initially, it was a small, exclu- overall are avian havens.

The club’s proximity to such hotsive group. To join, prospective membeds, along with the tenabers had to be recomcious work ethic of its mended and approved in a NATURE well-informed members, process similar to applyhas helped it make signifing for a job. Restrictions LOVERS icant contributions to loosened over time, birding and ornithology. though, and interest grew.

To date, the QCBC has In fact, the club was identified and documentahead of the curve in the ed an impressive 371 speearly to mid-20th century, as it had many more female members cies of birds. Club President Ian Resnick has seen 180 different spethan most other birding organizations cies, and others in Queens have (birdwatching was a male-dominated hobby back then). By the 1960s, the observed close to 300.

Since 1933, the group has particigroup was one of the first to have a pated in the National Audubon Sociwoman as president.

For 90 years, the QCBC has had a ety’s Christmas Bird Count, the set of bylaws, held formal monthly country’s longest-running communimeetings and gone on countless bird- ty science bird project — essentially an annual national bird census taking ing trips in the borough and beyond. place between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5.

During much of the 20th century, the Birders across the country monitor group met at the Queens Botanical Garden’s Visitors and Administration zones 15 miles in diameter, with those zones divided into sectors, and Building in Flushing, but in the late 1990s changed its meeting location to report the results to the National Audubon Society. (The QCBC the Alley Pond Environmental Center in Douglaston and, for now, Oakland encourages anyone interested to join its members in this year’s count.)

Gardens.

For almost a decade, the club has Today, Queens County Bird Club Chronicle Contributor

The Queens County Bird Club and famous ornithologist David Allen Sibly, far right, on a 1993 summer birding trip in Maine. Below, more recent birding in Nickerson Beach Park a little east of Queens in Lido Beach, LI; and a blue jay — no rarity but a work of art on wings. COURTESY PHOTOS; PHOTO BY STEVE FISHER, RIGHT also taken part in The Big Sit!, an annual international one-day birding event hosted by Bird Watcher’s Digest. It is fundamentally a birding marathon, in which birdwatchers try to identify as many species as they can while limited to a space 17 feet in diameter. The QCBC’s best year at the event was 2018, when it documented 91 species.

Over the decades, the club has provided its collected bird-related data to the National Audubon Society, the New York State Ornithological Association and other organizations. The information has proved invaluable for tracking bird population trends and breeding patterns.

Some Queens County Bird Club members have authored books important to the field. “The Guide to the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands,” written by Herbert Raffaele, was published in 1983. Corey Finger’s “American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of New York” was released in 2015. Finger, a Queens resident, is also the creator of “10,000 Birds,” the country’s most popular birding blog. His photos have appeared on the “Today Show” and in several birding publications.

One of the club’s greatest contributions to the hobby has been simply existing. It’s one of the last independent birding organizations in the area, as some in the city and elsewhere have ceased operations in recent years.

The QCBC’s impact has been felt outside the birding world as well. The group constantly promotes the conservation of green spaces. When the city Parks Department was planning

to bulldoze part of the Ridgewood Reservoir to make room for ballfields in the mid-2000s, the club, along with other community and environmental groups, voiced its displeasure. After more than a decade of advocacy, the reservoir was finally recognized as a protected wetland. The site is used by 100 species of birds, some considered threatened or of special concern. The club has also helped protect Jamaica Bay and bring attention to ecosystems destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

“As our club and hobby grew, we were able to have more of an influence,” Resnick says. “We continually work with NYC Parks and Friends of Alley Pond Park to ensure habitats are preserved.”

The group has seen its fair share of bird trends over its nine-decade run.

But the most noticeable pattern is also the most alarming: Bird populations continue to drop.

“There is so much less habitat in Queens compared to 90 years ago,” Resnick sighs. “For example, Bay Terrace used to be a swampy forest.

“The old-timers in the club always used to talk about how many more birds there used to be. Now I’m the old-timer saying that to the younger birders. The trend has not been good.”

Resnick says the types of birds in Queens have also changed due to global warming. He notes some birds that traditionally remained south, such as cardinals, have now moved north and are common in Queens.

Other factors have also been at play.

For instance, the West Nile virus

decimated the borough’s crow population, with ravens replacing them.

It’s not all bad news — Resnick adds that the club has had many rare sightings, especially in recent years.

“We sometimes get birds that wander in the wrong direction,” he says. One time, vultures were found at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center campus in Queens Village. In fall of 2012, a Virginia’s warbler, normally found in the American Southwest, visited Alley Pond Park. The organization’s website reports it has spotted “pretty amazing” species such as brown pelicans, black-legged kittiwakes, dickcissels and parasitic jaegers.

The club made a smooth transition into the 21st century. It has a detailed website and multiple social media accounts where birders interact. Yes, the club tweets about the original tweeters. Members also use the new tools of the day, such as apps that play bird calls and provide bird identifications.

“We were always told you can’t bird and photograph at the same time,” Resnick laughs. “Smartphones have changed birding. You no longer need camera equipment that weighs 10 pounds.”

The pandemic increased interest in the hobby, as people desperately sought fun outdoor activities. “The number of new birders had been increasing before Covid-19, but the quarantine definitely helped,” Resnick says. He points out that the number of birdwatchers at Oakland Lake in Alley Pond Park has “doubled or tripled in recent years.”

Since Covid-19 struck, club members have remained socially distant on field trips and wear masks. One wonders if the birds have noticed the humans’ change in behavior.

Waiting for hours outside to see a bird that may never come can make for an ornery ornithologist. But the club maintains a sense of humor — check out “the universal laws of birding” on its website, such as “the law of proportional observability”: “If there are two or more birds in a tree and one is a rarity, the only one you can’t see is the rarity.”

The Queens County Bird Club demonstrates the parallels between birding and life; both involve perspective, persistence, luck and the hope that something new and interQ esting will always come around.

C M ANNY page 21 Y K Page 21 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

44th Anniversary Edition

History is rich in Greater Astoria, LIC Exec director says reach out

by Sean Okula

embraced and embodied that spirit of innovation over the generations.

Among the many stories Singleton can share are tales of Colonial tide mills, the Steinway On a citywide level, Greater Astorial Historical Society Executive Director Bob Singleton piano company and the first photocopy, a printing of the word “Astoria” made in a storage says interest in preserving historical landmarks space at Broadway and 36th Street. and areas of historical significance piqued after While Singleton prepares lectures and the destruction of the old Penn Station in 1963.

“I think there was an awareness in New York invites speakers to shed light on niches of the area’s history, he and the organizaCity of the DNA of what makes this tion also like to engage the commucity great,” he said. “There’s a lot of PAST TO nity on a more personal level. Just discussion about New York City’s the start of the pandemic, he being an innovational place for new PRESENT before was working with a group of Engideas and concepts, where you can lish as a second language students see tomorrow today.” on the construction of their own pia“For something to grow, it needs nos made out of cardboard. They a firm foundation,” he added. “I may have been presented to the think when Penn Station was destroyed, people said, ‘You know, we really president of Steinway & Sons, still based in Queens, if not for the virus. need to take a step back and survey what our On an individual level, it is that personal city is, where we stand, what we’re all about, touch that brings history to life for those that why this is such a wonderful place.’”

Following what Singleton says was a trend of pass through the historical society.

“If I show them an icebox, people might the time, the Greater Astoria Historical Society was founded in 1985. The area, which covers say, ‘Yeah, in my country we still have these,’ not only Astoria but also parts of Long Island or, ‘My grandparents used to have this,’” he City, Queens Plaza and Ravenswood, has said. “They can see themselves within the Associate Editor

The Greater Astoria Historical Society has previously led walks through areas such as Steinway Village, FILE PHOTO on which participants would pass landmarks such as the Steinway Mansion, above. context of time. So they can look back, look at today and start to look at the future with more understanding.”

Singleton implores the community to make that effort to reach out to the organization, highlighting the fact that it is not only readily available through virtual means — one of the benefits of the pandemic is the advent of Zoom lectures — but also that the community informs the organization as much as it

informs the people.

“If some parent or some teacher sees this, get in touch with us,” he said. “If you’re a neighborhood group, get in touch with us. If you have questions about the community, call us. We’re here for you. We’re here as a service to answer those questions.”

The Greater Astoria Historical Society can be reached by phone at (718) 278-0700 and by Q email at info@astorialic.org.

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C M ANNY page 22 Y K 44th Anniversary Edition

The QPL’s Friends of the Library The network’s origins and impact over the years

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

The Queens Public Library has long served as a vital institution throughout the borough, as each branch delivers a variety of services that far exceed providing internet access or helping locate a copy of the latest Sally Rooney novel.

Many of those additional programs and resources are made possible through the Friends of the Library, in which community members work with their local branches to fundraise for, organize and promote library projects and initiatives.

Despite its relative youth, the group’s history is somewhat murky.

Even the year of the Friends’ founding is unclear, remembered as anywhere from 1995 to ’99.

There’s consensus, however, that the Friends network was formed by then-QPL President Gary Strong and former library community affairs manager and ex-City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer .

“What we were seeking to do was to develop a borough-wide network of library advocates, right, who could build support for libraries, in their community,” Van Bramer said.

In fact, he still remembers traveling to community boards, civic groups and houses of worship to encourage residents to form chapters at area branches.

As Scott McLeod, the director of Volunteer Services at QPL explained, the QPL’s Friends network is somewhat unconventional.

“Most systems — especially smaller, kind of rural, suburban systems — only have one [group],” he said. “We’ve always had multiple chapters.”

But in Queens, creating a network of Friends groups made “perfect sense,” Van Bramer said.

“We’re a borough of neighborhoods,” he told the Chronicle. “If you go to the Woodside Library — you feel really connected to your local library, want to help your local library, and therefore your local community. We wanted to allow folks to do that — to organize in their local communities, supporting their local library, while at the same time ... connect them to the bigger system.”

That was certainly the case for Michaeline Von Drathen, who joined the Friends of Ridgewood Library in 2017 and became chapter president in 2020.

“I had always wanted to do service or volunteer work in the Ridgewood community, and one of the first places I thought of was Ridgewood Library,” she told the Chronicle. “I’ve been going to Ridgewood Library since I was a kid, and my father actually grew up here as well, and he went to the library, as well.”

Von Drathen takes pride in the work the Friends of Ridgewood Library do, be it a book giveaway or a watercolor workshop.

“They’re a dedicated bunch of individuals,” she said of her chapter’s members.

Van Bramer said that Flushing, Sunnyside, Richmond Hill, Stein-

The Friends’ annual conference gives members throughout the borough the opportunity to compare notes.

The Friends of the Library help organize and fundraise for a number of library programs throughout the borough, PHOTOS COURTESY QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY ranging from arts and crafts activities to street fairs to plant sales. way, Windsor Park, Auburndale and the Rochdale Village Adult Learning Center were among the first branches to form chapters.

But McLeod said it’s not clear which chapter — including both the active, now 12, and the inactive ones — was the first.

“This is a question that we’ve been asking — and I’ve been asking — since my department took over stewardship of the Friends,” he said. “I’ve had to go back and realize, the Friends had been around longer than the internet, and they’ve been around longer than digital record keeping. Everything was, at that time, really paper archives, and a lot of our Friends kept their own their own records.”

The pursuit of the Friends’ beginnings ultimately led McLeod in December 2021 to start the Friends Legacy Project, a digital archive compiling records and oral histories of the network and its chapters.

“We have Friends that have been around since the late ’90s, and they, they’re constantly telling us about all the great stuff that they have done at their branches, or that other groups have done,” McLeod said. “And we said, ‘OK, you guys have got to stop telling us this sort of in passing. We really want to document all of these things.’”

Through that project, McLeod

said the QPL has been able to track ences,” Owens said. “That provides the network’s evolution. And opportunities to hear and share though many of the Friends’ proj- ideas with other Friends from across the borough — things that ects are the same — backpack giveaways, plant sales, book swaps and they’re doing, the things that work, things that are wonderful, things street fairs were mainstays even in that you can replicate.” the beginning — they have been Heading to Albany for Library able to cast a wider net in more Day every March as state lawmakrecent years. ers finalize the budget is another “When they started, it was all about community — who you event many Friends have enjoyed over the years. knew in the community and word Van Bramer used to lead the of mouth,” McLeod said. “Now, the Friends have been able to reach a annual pilgrimage, during which Friends of the Library would lobby wider audience through things like email, and we’re exploring things area legislators to provide the QPL with more funding. He like texting.” looks back on it fondly.

“They still love their STRONG Referring to Assemblyfliers,” he joked. man Jeff Aubrey But throughout the Friends’ history, among BRANCHES (D-Corona), he said, “I remember going to visit the two most popular the assemblyman. We events are the annual would have folks from Friends Conference and East Elmhurst, from his Library Day in Albany.

During the annual conference, district, who would go up there, of which takes place every fall, course, he invariably knew them.

“It was very sweet. They would Friends from various chapters have be like, ‘The East Elmhurst the opportunity to exchange Library is my favorite place in the thoughts and learn from each other world.’” through a variety of workshops.

It’s a hit among Friends every A former QPL employee herself, year. “They find it extremely St. Albans chapter President Lynn rewarding,” Owens said.

Owens first became interested in Those interested in joining a joining the Friends through the Friends of the Library chapter may conference; she has attended every visit volunteer.queenslibrary.org/ year since 2016.

Q “I like attending Friends confer- friends_membership.

C M ANNY page 23 Y K

continued from page 7 Nassau itself did not exist.

“It was at first the five boroughs and Suffolk,” Wilkinson said. “And Queens extended out to the Suffolk county line.”

Three of the Queens towns, she said, elected not to stake out on their own when New York City decided to consolidate in 1898.

“That’s how Nassau came about,” she said. “And the three towns in the western part of Queens were Flushing, Jamaica and Newtown.”

Newtown, Wilkinson said, extended from the East River to the Flushing River.

She said it, Flushing and Jamaica were more like townships, with the individual towns and neighborhoods within them retaining their distinct identities.

“They continued that out in Nassau County,” Wilkinson said. “Here it all sort of melted into New York City.”

Maspeth was the original town settled in 1642, but the settlers were driven out by Native Americans and fled back to Manhattan Island.

“They decided to try again and settled in what today is called Elmhurst,” Wilkinson said. “Elmhurst was called Newtown until the beginning of the 20th century.”

Enter the real estate industry.

“Real estate interests decided that they wanted to rename the towns,” she explained. “They didn’t like the association

with Newtown Creek, which was already pretty polluted. They said, ‘Why would we keep this name? We want people to move here. We don’t want them to associate it with a filthy creek.’”

Members did not mind the name when they founded the group in 2007, to say the least. And neither then nor today do they mind the organization’s relatively small footprint.

“We aren’t really interested in having a building,” she said. “What we do is contact other organizations to do displays.

We’ve had stuff out at Maspeth Federal Savings, outside by 69th Street and Grand Avenue. There’s a sign dedicated to the history of Maspeth, one of those blue and gold signs.

Another point of pride, Wilkinson said, was the group’s participation in the naming of a community garden slated for Ridgewood, one she said could be opening as early as this coming spring.

“We give tours. We like to do more to educate than collect objects. Of course objects can be very valuable for education, but we want to stay small, 100 percent volunteer. Whenever you have the time, you can go out and we can get something going.

“But I think we’ve accomplished a lot for that type of an organization.”

More information about the Newtown Historical Society can be found online at Q newtownhistorical.org.

Bobbi offers haven for pets “Someone who can do that to a dog is not in their right mind,” manager of shelter operations Elyse Jordan said. “They could move on to people or children.”

Jordan said the maximum punishment they are expecting for the man is a fine and up to a year in prison.

“The laws definitely need to be changed,” she said.

To cover expenses, the organization hosts fundraisers throughout the year. It recently held its Halloween Masquerade Ball, for which 307 people showed up. In the past, it has been part of events at the Javits Center and hosted parades at The Shops at Atlas Park.

They have an event planned for March at the Coral House in Baldwin.

The organization relies on the kindness of the community to keep running. Most of the staff is made up of volunteers, with one veterinarian offering his time on Fridays to check on animals at the Freeport location.

Another man decorates his house for Halloween and asks visitors for donations, all going to Bobbi and the Strays.

“We got a lot of really good people,” she said. “Very good people.”

Those looking to volunteer with the organization can visit bobbiandthestrays. org/volunteer/. Those looking to donate can visit bobbiandthestrays.org/donate/.

Anyone looking to adopt a pet can visit Q bobbiandthestrays.org/adopt/.

St. Mary’s Community Mausoleum

One of the greatest gifts you can give to those you love is a sense of security – the knowledge that you have taken care of everything.

St. Michael’s is a religious cemetery open to people of all faiths.

For more information including a free Resource Guide call (718) 278-3240 or visit us at www.stmichaelscemetery.com

St. Mary’s Community Mausoleum

72-02 Astoria Boulevard East Elmhurst, NY 11370 718 278-3240 STMC-078728

For the latest news visit EDITION qchron.com 44TH ANNIVERSARY • 2022

continued from page 14 new family. Killing is not an option; one animal has been with the organization for more than 10 years.

“We don’t do a lot of fosters,” she said.

“Mostly with people who volunteer here for a while. I don’t trust anybody.”

The organization undertakes a rigorous process in determining whether or not an adoption applicant is fit to take home one of its animals. Staffers ask for pet history, a number for a reachable veterinarian, rent status and three nonfamily references, among other items.

They also perform home checks, and one of the stipulations for adopting is approval for a visit from the organization. The application also asks if the adopting family would have the means to cover the expenses for any behavioral problems.

“Sometimes I’ll turn down a lot of people before one goes,” Giordano said.

Recently, the organization has taken to advocating for Athena, a dog left on the stoop of the Freeport location. She was found in a crate too small for a dog of her size, emaciated with sores all over her body — one of which was exposing her bone.

Organization staff rushed her to the veterinarian, where they managed to save her life. They later found the man who had abandoned her, and he admitted to keeping her in the cage, ridden with dirt and feces, for months.

Established 1852

Page 23 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022

Newtown Historical Society

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 10, 2022 Page 24

C M ANNY page 24 Y K

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center is proud to be named one America’s Best 250 Hospitals by Healthgrades This is one of many awards Jamaica Hospital has received for delivering high-quality care

For the latest news EDITION visit qchron.com 44TH ANNIVERSARY • 2022

Other recent awards include

Serving our patients and the community in a way that is second to none