Queens Chronicle 37th Anniversary 11-2015 by Queens Chronicle

C M ANN page 1 Y K

1978

37TH ANNIVERSARY

2015

have you heard the

? 37TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Queens’ Largest Weekly Community Newspaper Group

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015 Page 2

C M ANN page 2 Y K QUEENS

Q UEENS C HRONICLE 37th Anniversary

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 Christopher Barca Associate Editor Anthony O’Reilly Associate Editor Hannah Douglas Associate Editor Terry Nusspickel Editorial Production Manager Jan Schulman Art Director Moeen Din Associate Art Director Ella Jipescu Associate Art Director Richard Weyhausen Proofreader Lisa LiCausi Office Manager Stela Barbu Administration Gregg Cohen Production Assistant

CONTENTS Have you heard the news? A brief history of Queens .... 2

1915: Subways drive move to the east ..........................18

C. 18,000 BCE: Queens, Long Island formed ................... 4

1939/1948: New airports open to airliners .................19

C. 4,600 BCE: Native settlements are evidenced ............ 6

1939/1964: World’s Fairs held in Queens .....................20

1657: The Flushing Remonstrance written..................... 7

1945: WWII vets drive construction boom ....................20

1664: British defeat Dutch, name New York ................... 8

1946: United Nations meets in Flushing .......................20

1776/1790: War and President Washington ................... 9

1950: LIRR holiday train wreck kills 78 .......................22

Senior Account Executives:

1827: New York’s last slaves are freed ..........................10

1964: Kitty Genovese slain in Kew Gardens .................22

Jim Berkoff, Beverly Espinoza

1892: Historic Jamaica High School opens ...................10

1965: The Beatles play Shea Stadium ............................23

Patricia Gatt, Debrah Gordon, Al Rowe, Maureen Schuler

1894: Aqueduct Race Track is established ....................11

1969: Jets win the Super Bowl in an upset ...................24

Contributors:

1895: A cyclone devastates Woodhaven .........................12

1969/1986: The Mets win the World Series..................26

Photographers:

1898: Queens splits; a part joins New York ...................12

1976-1977: Son of Sam wages killing spree ..................27

Walter Karling, Rick Maiman, Steve Malecki

1904: General Slocum burns, killing 1,021 ...................13

1984: Ferraro runs for vice president, inspires ...........28

1908: Motor Parkway opens to the public .....................14

1995: Pope John Paul II says Mass in Queens ..............28

1909: Queensboro Bridge is completed ..........................14

2001: Flight 587 crashes, killing 265 people ................29

1909: Forest Hills Gardens established .........................15

2009: Flight 1549 is the Miracle on the Hudson ..........30

1915: Queens hosts its first US Open ............................18

2012: Hurricane Sandy floods South Queens ...............30

Account Executives:

Lloyd Carroll, Mark Lord, Ronald Marzlock

Interns: Gina Martinez, Paige Mallory Passman

Office: 62-33 Woodhaven Blvd. Rego Park, NY 11374-7769 Phone: (718) 205-8000 Fax: (718) 205-0150 Mail: P.O. Box 74-7769 Rego Park, NY 11374-7769 E-mail: Mailbox@qchron.com Website: www.qchron.com

Supplement editor: Peter C. Mastrosimone; Supplement designer and cover illustrator: Ella Jipescu; Editorial layout: Terry Nusspickel

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A brief history of Queens As we do around this time every year, the Queens Chronicle is celebrating the anniversary of our founding in 1978 with a special historical issue. As has been said many times, the past is prologue, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. This year, for our 37th anniversary “Have you heard the news?” edition, we’re turning the clock way back. We’re looking at key events in Queens history literally from the beginning, from the point thousands of years ago when the retreat of a glacier revealed and formed the land that became our borough. It was a very cold place, with little plant life. Eventually — it’s not clear exactly when — native peoples moved in. We know that they were here at least as early as 4,600 BCE, that is, roughly 6,600 years ago. It may have been long before that. Their descendants were of course the Native Americans whom European

colonizers encountered when they came here, starting to settle Queens and the rest of what would become New York City in the 17th century. From there the record is naturally much more clear, and within these pages you’ll find many — though certainly not all; that would take many newspapers to cover — of the important events that shaped Queens until the present day. You’ll read about the Flushing Remonstrance, the petition written by residents of Flushing telling thenNew Amsterdam Gov. Peter Stuyvesant that no, they would not follow his orders to shun members of the Quaker sect. Penned in the last week of 1657, the document is among the first, maybe the first, assertions of religious freedom in North America, setting the stage for a portion of the Constitution’s First Amendment more than 130 years later. Just a few years later, the Dutch who governed New Amsterdam were defeated by the British, who took over and renamed the city New York. Queens later became a county, one which at the time was far larger, including also all of present-day Nassau County. The British themselves were booted out about 100 years later in the American Revolution. Queens’ role there was not a storied one, however. This was pro-

British Tory country, and after Gen. George Washington lost his first major battle, not far away in Brooklyn, the Redcoats occupied the county for the rest of the war. Meanwhile New York was freeing its slaves, not all in one fell swoop as the nation later did, but a little bit at a time until 1827, when the last chains were finally broken. That did not mean African Americans had full rights by any means, but they did build communities here in Queens. After telling the tale of emancipation we move to the end of the 19th century with events such as the opening of Jamaica High School and Aqueduct Race Track. After that it’s a rapid run through the 20th and early 21st centuries: the Queensboro Bridge, the airports, the World’s Fairs, the slaying of Kitty Genovese, Geraldine Ferraro’s vice presidential bid, Flight 1549, Hurricane Sandy. And much, much more. We hope you find “Have you heard the news?” entertaining, educational and sometimes sobering, just as we did when putting it together, and just as history itself tends to be.

Peter C. Mastrosimone

Editor-in-Chief

C M ANN page 3 Y K

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C M ANN page 4 Y K Have You Heard the News?

Our land was formed by melting ice The glacier gave Queens its shape by Peter C. Mastrosimone Editor-in-Chief

About 20,000 years ago, when the glacier covering much of North America had reached its maximum and was starting to retreat, the land that became Queens was a forbidding place, not somewhere you’d likely want to live. It was fiercely cold, with average annual temperatures of between 15 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to around 52 degrees now, according to scientists such as Gilbert Hanson of Stony Brook University on Long Island. There was little vegetation and little precipitation. “You’re on glacial sediment almost everywhere,” Hanson, an expert geologist who has studied the formation of Long Island — of which Queens is a part geographically though not governmentally — in great depth, said when asked what borough residents are living upon today. There are some exceptions around Astoria, where the “basement rock” hidden by the glacial sediment elsewhere is on the surface, as it is in most of Manhattan, but few. “And when the glacier left, the area was in

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what was called a glacial tundra,” he continued. “You can see it was really, really cold. There was very little rainfall, or snowfall, and it was quite barren. Since it was a tundra, there were mostly sedges and grasses and some shrubs — it was quite different from now.” Megafauna such as woolly mammoths, the extinct relatives of the elephant, and sabretoothed tigers may have been in the area at the time, Hanson said, though it was so dry and cold that even they may have found the region unlivable until later. As the Earth warmed and the glacier retreated, it left its legacy on the land. Marking its southernmost extent is the line of higher ground that runs from Brooklyn into Queens around aptly named Highland Park and the nearby cemeteries, then roughly along Forest Park to Kew Gardens, Jamaica Estates, Hollis Hills, Oakland Gardens, Alley Pond Park, Little Neck and on into Nassau. The ridge is called the Harbor Hills Moraine. Farther east it is supplanted by the Ronkonkoma Moraine. The land south of the moraine is much lower and smoother: the outwash plain created by

A geographical map shows the topography of Queens, including the line of higher ground left behind by the retreating glacier, back when the likes of the woolly mammoth may have roamed MAP COURTESY GILBERT HANSON / SBU; the area. ROYAL BC MUSEUM MODEL IMAGE VIA WIKIPEDIA

again about 13,000 years ago, until finally, at the 11,500 mark, rapid warming occurred. Given that the Earth’s history shows repeated glacial epochs of roughly 100,000 years broken up by warmer periods of about 10,000 years, humankind is on track for another big freeze. The big question in Hanson’s mind is whether manmade global warming has changed the climate enough to actually break the pattern. “We may have screwed up the system,” he said, but added with a chuckle, “Since I like glaQ ciers, I wouldn’t mind if they came back.”

glacial melt. That’s why the South Shore is where the big beaches are, and it’s one reason, though far from the only one, that more of South Queens is susceptible to flooding, as in Hurricane Sandy, than other coastal areas here. Around 15,000 years ago the region began to slowly warm up, Hanson said, and bigger plants such as spruce trees started to appear. There’s some evidence of human activity soon after that — namely large spearheads used to hunt megafauna — but it’s only thousands of years later that proof of settlements is seen. It got very cold

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Long before Queens became the World’s Borough, it was the home of var ious Native American tribes for millennia. According to the Garvies Point Museum in Glen Cove, LI, archeological studies have shown that humans may have first stepped foot on geographic Long Island as early as 10,000 BCE, a few thousand years after the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated northward and exposed the landmass of Long Island, the Hudson River Valley and Southern New England to view. While it is believed human settlers first made the island their per manent home around 4,600 BCE, primitive spearpoints dating back to around 10,0 0 0 BC E h ave been sporadically found along the island. However, the 1858 discovery of a campground in southern Staten Island used by nomadic hunters of prehistoric animals such as mastodons — creat ures more closely related to modern elephants than woolly mammoths — that roamed the area has given credence to the belief that the first man to step foot in Queens arrived approximately 12,000 years ago. But archaic campgrounds dating back to 4,600 BCE are more common on geographic Long Island.

These sites, which were home to normally just 50 people or fewer, have been discovered along prehistoric rivers and lakes that would have been in the midst of the thick forest that blanketed the area, providing plentiful food options for the growing population. As the centuries passed, new bands of Native Americans migrated to the area. And by the time Dutch navigator Adriaen Block became the first European to lay eyes on the borough as he sailed up the East River in 1614, there were 13 distinct tribes living on the island, with the Canarsie, Marsapeague, Matinecock and Rockaway groups each occupying parts of modernday Queens. The arrival of colonists from both the Netherlands and England in the mid160 0s ma rked t he end of t he Nat ive American tribes’ reign over the island, with the Europeans purchasing much of the borough’s land from the aboriginal residents throughout the first half of the century. By 1650, Europeans had established set tlements i n moder n- d ay Maspeth, Flushing, Jamaica and Elmhurst. And on Nov. 1, 1683, Queens became one of the 12 original counties of the Province of Q New York.

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Flushing paved the way for all religions Remonstrance stood up for freedom by Mark Lord Chronicle Contributor

Across the borough, generally regarded as the most ethnically diverse place on Earth, houses of worship abound, representing every imaginable religious denomination. Congregations worship freely and without fear of persecution. But it wasn’t always that way. Indeed, in many places around the world, it still isn’t. “Queens is an oasis in a world where the norm is to exclude others,” said Carl Ballenas, a local historian. “If the world is to change, we need acts of courage in defiance of these norms,” he said. Ballenas was commenting on the impact that the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition that articulated one of the most fundamental of human rights, has had on history. As he explained it, “The town of Flushing was established in 1645 as part of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, operating under a charter that established ‘the right to have and enjoy liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of Holland, without moles-

tation or disturbance from any magistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister.’” But, he added, even with the “noble mandate, the notorious governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, felt the need to exclude any religion that was not the Dutch Reformed Church.” Stuyvesant’s concerns were focused particularly on the growing Quaker community in Flushing. Anyone found welcoming the Quakers was subject to a fine or banishment. The Quakers were seen as posing the most serious threat to theological tranquility at a time when personal religious beliefs were tolerated so long as they were kept private. But there were some who resisted. “A simple group of farmers, tillers of the earth, demonstrated an act of courage ... [that] should never be forgotten,” said Ballenas. Affronted by the persecution of the Quakers, the farmers, none Quakers themselves, signed the Remonstrance, calling for the freedom to practice religion and insisting Flushing would welcome those of all faiths.

The document, seen as a precursor to the United States Constitution’s provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights, was signed on Dec. 27, 1657. Four of the signers were ultimately arrested. While two immediately recanted, the document’s writer, Edward Hart, the town clerk, remained firm in his convictions and was banished. John Bowne, perhaps best remembered today for the high school named after him, allowed Quakers to meet secretly in his house. He was arrested in 1662 and also banished. “The Remonstrance represents a progression of religion in America,” said Patrick Symes, historian for the Quaker Meeting House, also known as the Flushing Friends Meeting House. Of the signers, he added, it “took a lot of nerve to do what should have always been done.” Though not written by them, it epitomized the Quaker philosophy that, according to Symes, suggests “there’s a bit of God in everyone. No one is less valid than another.” The original document has been lost, but the earliest copy, also dating to 1657, still exists. The borough president’s office held a celebration on the 350th anniversary in 2007, with descendants of the signers in attendance. The Quaker Meeting House, built in 1694, still stands today, at 137-16 Northern Blvd. in Downtown Flushing, enlarged to its present size in 1719. Though it was used by the British army as a prison and barracks during the Revo-

A por tion of page one of the Flushing Remonstrance, which was burned in a fire in Albany a century ago. PHOTO COURTESY NYS ARCHIVES lution, it is generally regarded as the oldest house of worship in continuous use in the state. Free tours of the house are offered to the public every Sunday at noon. And on Nov. 14, Quaker Heritage Day will take place there from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The free event is also open to the public and includes a special activity for children: “Write a Remonstrance” will allow them to pen suggestions to the mayor on how to make the city a better place. The letters will be sent in December on the anniversary of Q the writing of the original document.

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C M ANN page 8 Y K Have You Heard the News?

New Amsterdam becomes New York

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After a brief battle between the Dutch and the English, New Amsterdam became New York on Sept. 8, 1664. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the day Dutch Gov. Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to an English naval squadron commanded by Col. Richard Nicolls. The colony had been established by the Dutch West Indian company in 1624 and encompassed all of what is now known as New York City, parts of Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. The book â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Neighborhoods of Queensâ&#x20AC;? by Claudia Gryvatz Copquin notes that one of the earliest settlements was in Maspeth, which was settled in 1642 by both English and Dutch colonists. Newtown, largely present-day Elmhurst, and Jamaica, dubbed Rustdorp by Stuyvesant because it was used as rest town at the time, were mostly inhabited by the English settlers who had moved from New England and were settled in 1652 and 1656, respectively. Stuyvesant was willing to grant them charters provided they swore allegiance to Dutch rule. When the British took over, the area became part of the County of Yorkshire. In an article on the Thirteen WNET website entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Walk Through Queensâ&#x20AC;? David Hartman and Barry Lewis noted that in 1637 Stuyvesant periodically made grants of land to various Dutch settlers in the regions presently known as Astoria, Hunters Point and Long Island City in Queens. Manhattan, named for the local Indian t r ibe, was famously bought rather cheaply for $24 worth of trinkets and later added. As the Dutch settlement expanded conflicts developed between the colonists and the Native Americans, and in 1641 almost 1,000 Native Americans and settlers were killed in the war that followed. The English already felt an entitlement to the New Netherlands colony. It had originally been discovered by English sailor Henry Hudson, who, employed by the Dutch, was looking for the North-West Passage people at the time believed led to India. But the Dutch won out â&#x20AC;&#x201D; until 1664. Matters werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t helped by the fact that Stuyvesant was an unpopular leader at the time and the Dutch colonists under his care refused to rally behind him against the British invasion. In the chapter titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;How New Amsterdam became New Yorkâ&#x20AC;? of the book â&#x20AC;&#x153;This Country of Ours: the Story of the United Statesâ&#x20AC;? by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, Marshall details how disaffection with the governor led to the British takeover of New Netherlands. Ironically, Stuyvesant had already replaced another unpopular and autocratic

The cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s namesake: the Duke of York, later King James II, was granted control of a large area. PORTRAIT BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER, VIA WIKIPEDIA governor. But the settlers found Stuyvesant even more dictatorial and harsh than his predecessor. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If anyone appeals my judgments I shall make them a foot shorter and send the pieces to Holland. Let them appeal in that way,â&#x20AC;? Stuyvesant is noted as saying when some of the settlers sent letters back to Holland to complain about his tyranny. In 1664 Charles II of England secretly granted all the land between Delaware and Con necticut to his brother, James, then the Duke of York, and later King James II, and sent a fleet of ships under Nicolls to claim it. Despite the prosperity of the colony, the will of the settlers was apparently not with Stuyvesant and when it came time to fight the British in 1664 the Dutch colonists refused. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You know in your own conscience that your fortress is incapable of making head three days against so powerful an enemy,â&#x20AC;? the settlers wrote to Stuyvesant, urging him to surrender. He finally did and, in honor of the Duke of York, New Amsterdam became New York. After the defeat of the Dutch by the British forces, Fort Orange became Fort Albany and the Dutch flag was removed, to be replaced by the British flag. The British and Dutch settlers managed to coexist relatively peacefully, according to Marshall even though British rule proved as autocratic as the Dutch. In 1673 the Dutch briefly regained control of the land and once again New York became New Amsterdam, but it was a short-lived victory, and in 1674 the British regained control until they, too, were eventually defeated by the Q American Revolutionaries.

C M ANN page 9 Y K

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He lost the battle but won the war by Peter C. Mastrosimone Editor-in-Chief

The first major battle of the Revolutionary War, and the largest known to ever have been fought in North America until that point, was waged not far from Queens. And the lead-up to it involved an army marching just outside the borough — then county — line. Alternately known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Long Island, the Aug. 27, 1776 fight centered on high ground in areas such as today’s Prospect Park and GreenWood Cemetery. But before it began, British forces that had invaded Brooklyn to take on American Gen. George Washington made a sweeping maneuver to the east to hit his flank. That brought them as close to Queens as the present-day corner of Broadway and

Jamaica Avenue, where they then moved north through today’s Cemetery of the Evergreens and then back west to attack. And attack they did, defeating the American rebels soundly. But they did not finish off Washington’s army, and on the night of Aug. 28-29, the general led a retreat across the East River to Manhattan, saving his forces for the victories to come later. The British occupied Queens throughout the war. When they needed housing, they simply notified a family they were moving in. The majority here were on their side anyway. But not all. Francis Lewis, for one, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, saw his northern Queens estate destroyed and his wife imprisoned. She later died. Long after the eventual American triumph, Washington passed through Queens on a tour of Long Island, staying a night at an inn at the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica. Thanks to the efforts of Immaculate Conception School teacher Carl Ballenas and his students, a plaque on the federal building now at the site commemorates the 1790 visit. Q

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Freed slaves still lacked equal rights by Victoria Zunitch Chronicle Contributor

When the State of New York emancipated the last of its slaves in 1827, it created surprisingly but temporarily well-integrated residential neighborhoods in the city and Queens, added newly free people to nascent middleclass black neighborhoods, and set the state up for a protracted fight over the right of suffrage for African Americans. New York City slavery was very different from plantation slavery, said Karen Miller, a professor of history at LaGuardia Community College. It was unlikely for a white family to own a large number of slaves in the city because even the wealthy lived in smaller accommodations than plantation owners. Although Queens was different because it was rural, its farms were also much smaller than plantations and didn’t hold the large numbers of slaves those did. “The presence of slavery produces residential integration because African Americans are dispersed more widely throughout the white population,” Miller said. Many slaves lived in the homes of their owners. “Ironically, that created a more racially integrated racial terrain than we have today because slave families were living closer to, and with, white families,” Miller said. After emancipation became official in New York State in 1827, the result of a gradual process that had begun in 1799, the city and

Queens remained more racially integrated than they are now, she said. That changed when racism became more pronounced as whites felt threatened by the Great Migration of black Americans from the South to the North, which began in 1916. Living in close proximity didn’t necessarily make the races like each other. Slave law authors had taken extra pains to prohibit slave contact with society, even slave society, for fear they would stage a violent insurrection, according to the 1986 book “A History of Negro Slavery in New York” by Edgar J. McManus. AfricanAmerican power continued to be limited after emancipation as the freed slaves were still denied the right to vote. Newspaper clippings in the Archives section of the Central branch of the Queens Public Library in Jamaica reveal that the fears of whites weren’t unfounded. Slaves in New York tried violent revolt several times and were brutally punished with tortuous deaths. On Jan. 24, 1708, the Hallett family of Newtown, including three children, was murdered with an axe by their male Indian slave. He and a female slave, an African-American woman, were then tortured and murdered. And during the gradual process of emanci-

pation, although slave auctions virtually disappeared in the city and some slaveholders who saw the writing on the wall stopped physically punishing their slaves, others took advantage by using loopholes or engaging in blatantly illegal acts to sell their slaves into other states. Free African Americans had already settled in some concentrations in Flushing and in Jamaica, where some believe the first Queens A f r ica n A mer ica ns arrived from Curacao in the 1600s. The Macedonia AME church in Flushing is part of this legacy. The church’s website says the earliest available records show its original site was purchased in 1811 by the trustees and members of the African Methodist Society of Flushing, the forerunner of the present Macedonia African American Episcopal Church. “It is believed that the Society was actually formed many years earlier by free blacks, Indians and whites, who could have also been exslaves,” the site says. After slavery, some whites were still afraid of giving too much power to those who were newly freed. When New York State emancipated its slaves on July 4, 1827, a full 35 years before President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect, former slaves in

When people were property: a 1783 receipt for the sale of “Negro Wench Slave Lucie” to Hampton Lillebridge of Flushing, for 57 pounds. PHOTO COURTESY HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Queens and the rest of the state were legally free to intermarry with other races. But the Assembly demanded that African-American men be denied the right to vote. One of the leaders of an unsuccessful movement to secure equal voting rights was Edward M. Africanus, a resident of Flushing’s AfricanAmerican neighborhood in what later became the parking lot on Union Street. Two statewide referendums on the subject failed in 1846 and 1860, and black men didn’t get the right to vote until the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed five years after the Q Civil War, in 1870.

Jamaica High: once America’s largest The celebrated school was phased out after more than 100 years by Gina Martinez

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Jamaica High School made a lot of history in its 122-year run. Once the biggest high school in America, the school was phased out in June 2014 with a graduating class of only 24 students. But t he closi ng of the school does not erase its r ich, d iverse history. Originally built on Her riman Street in 1892 the building was later reconstructed in Hillside in 1897. Then in 1927 the school moved to its final home in Jamaica when it became obvious more space would be needed for the influx of students. Its new location was on a hilltop on Gothic Drive, in Georgian Revival style, and opened in 1927. It was the largest high school in America, with 625,000 square

feet of space that included an auditorium, swimming pool and gyms. In 1950 it had the largest enrollment rate in Queens with 4,613 students. At its peak in 1985, Jamaica High topped the list of the best secondary schools in America. The school’s student body became more diversified as it adapted to the ever- changing neig hborhood of Jamaica. T hat sa me yea r, the school had the third- lowest dropout rate in the city and received $43,030 from the Carnagie grant, one of 19 high schools in 15 states. According to the Carnegie Foundation,the grant was given out to “Help improve academic qualty and advance school reform.” The funds were used to back a project to study ethnic diversity and immigrant experience.

Jamaica High School’s last location, 167-01 Gothic Drive. The high school was the biggest in the QUEENS LIBRARY PHOTO / FREDERICK WEBER COLLECTION country at the time of its opening in 1927. In the years that followed, the school went into a decline. Poor graduation rate (below 50 percent for over a decade), low enrollment rate and increase in violence was enough to lead to co-location of four other schools and eventually a phaseout. After 122 years Jamaica High School would close its doors. The DOE justified its decision to phase out the school in this statement. “Based on an extensive review of data and community feedback, the DOE has determined that Jamaica High School is unable to turn around and cannot provide a high-quality education to its students.” Despite its less than stellar reputation

toward the end, many former students have only great things to say about their experience. Kathy Forrestal, who graduated in 1994, relished her time and only had good memories. “My time at Jamaica was incredible,” she said. “I made some of the best friends I’ve had in my life, and have countless great memories of my high school years.” James Eterno was a social studies teacher at Jamaica High School until its phasing out in 2014. He was disappointed in the school’s closure. “I had 28 mostly wonderf u l ye a r s work i ng at Ja m a ica H ig h School,” he said. “We had our issues, of course, However, students still received a Q quality education.”

C M ANN page 11 Y K

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“Notes for Racing Men” read the headline of The New York Times story on Sept. 26, 1894, announcing that the Queens County Jockey Club would host horse races at Aqueduct Race Track the next day. The th ree-sentence notice could have been missed had someone not been searching for it, but Aqueduct would make its presence known over the next few decades. In 1940, the jockey club spent more than $1 million trying to make the Ozone Park track, “one of the best thoroughbred plants in the country,” according to The Times. A new clubhouse, grandstand and other amenities were added on. But they weren’t finished. Nineteen years later, and an additional $32 million spent, a brand-new, much larger Aqueduct opened on Sept. 15. John Hanes, then-president of the New

York Racing Association, said, “if the enthusiasm of today’s crowd is any criterion, I have no fears about the success of Aqueduct.” And for a while, Hanes had no reason to fear. Aqueduct remained a mecca of horse racing and hosted t he f i n a l publ ic appearance of 1973 Triple Crown Winner Secretariat. But in 2007, thenGov. Spitzer proposed to close the track and sell the land and stables, amidst financial woes for NYRA. Then-Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer opposed the plan, which did not come to fruition, though some sources claim Albany officials are still considering it. The quality of the track has steadily declined and many believe NYRA shortchanges it in favor of Belmont and Saratoga. Resorts World Casino opened adjacent to the track in 2011 and gives a percentage of Q its revenue to NYRA.

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Aqueduct’s rise and fall in Queens

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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015 Page 12

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Woodhaven feels a ‘breath of heaven’ Thousands of people flocked to the community to witness the wreckage by Anthony O’Reilly Associate Editor

The New York Times described the cyclone that rolled through Woodhaven on July 13, 1895 as a “breath of heaven.” But heaven, Woodhaven was not. The paper described scenes of houses and schools dest royed , tombstones at Cypress Hills Cemetery wrecked and cows that had been lifted by the storm and sent whirling to places unknown. For decades, many believed that only one person died in Woodhaven as a result of the storm, a young, newly married girl named Louise Petroquien, who was struck by a beam after she walked outside her home to see what the commotion was about. But that’s not the case.

Through research and scouring the Times’ archive, historian Ed Wendell found that a young boy, Johnnie Kolb, died two days after the storm, bringing the death toll to two. Both victims are buried at Cypress Hills. “The you ng boy was forgotten,” Wendell said. Wendell said Kolb was badly injured and found under rubble after the storm. The Times said he was badly injured but first reported he was expected to recover. Wendell said the community was lucky that many more did not perish during the cyclone. “This thing demolished a school,” he said. “It was July so all the kids were out. But had that been a month or two earlier, than we’re talking a different story. There would’ve

The cyclone destroyed PS 59 at 83rd Street and Rockaway Boulevard. been plaques there in honor of all those who were lost.” The powerful wind storm came without warning, Wendell said. The destruction could be seen for miles. Houses lifted off their foundations, windows shattered and piles of debris were left in front of everyone’s houses. The Times reported that 100,000 people came into Woodhaven to survey the damage, but Wendell thinks that might be an exaggerated figure. “I think that’s just a numerical way of them saying a s--tload,” he said. Many of those people, according to the

PHOTO COURTESY ED WENDELL

Times and Wendell, visited Petroquien’s house to view her body. The historian said people were let in through the front door and out the side. “They had her laid out under a mountain of flowers,” Wendell said. “People were paying to come in and view the body.” As the Times put it, “All day long a crowd of several thousand persons surrounded the house.” Wendell is still looking to learn more of the historic act of God. “I‘m sure we haven’t even scratched the service of how destructive it was,” Q he said.

Borough of Queens joins New York City Until 1898, it was just another county on Long Island, and bigger by Gina Martinez

For latest newsEDITION visit qchron.com 37THthe ANNIVERSARY

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New Yorkers are well aware of the fact that our city is divided into five diverse boroughs but it wasn’t always that way. Everything we know about our city changed on Jan. 1, 1898 when the independent boroughs became part of the “Greater New York.” This consolidation had profound effects on not just the entire city but Queens specifically, totally changing what was once a vast land of mostly factories and farmland on L ong Isla nd i nto a d iver se a nd prosperous borough. While Queens is geographically the largest borough, its incorporation into New York City wasn’t more than an afterthought. The two areas at the time that mattered the most were Brook ly n a nd Ma n hat t a n, which were rival cities. For leaders at the time it seemed logical to combine them to form a new, huge metropolis. City planner Andrew Haswell Green had seen the success of consolidation in cities like London and Chicago. City leaders at the time believed the joining of bridges and ports would be more easily manageable through one entity than multiple independent towns and villages. The financial benefits were also hard to ignore. The ports were a big motivation: the bigger the port, the bigger the pull to the city. That’s where Queens came into play. Long Island City’s port facilities and Jamaica Bay both fit into the plan.

Queens County originally condid n’t thin k joining New York sisted of five towns: Hempstead, would benefit them. They were left Flushing, Jamaica, Newtown and asking, ‘How does this help us?’ Oyster Bay. Had it remained that They didn’t believe anything was in way Queens would be four times it for them.” larger than it is now. What came after for Queens was On January 1, 1898 the western prosperity in many for ms. The pa r t of Q ueens Cou nt y, wh ich expansion of transit came when the included Long Island City, FlushPennsylvania Rail Road purchased ing, Jamaica, Newtown — centered the Long Island Rail Road in 1900 on presentand electrified it through Queens day Elmhurst in 1905.That helped commuters — and the connect from Manhattan to Rockaway Queens and resulted in new comparts of munities being built, such as Forest Hempstead Hills, South Ozone Park and Kew became what Gardens, just to name a few. we now know The Queens Borough seal features a tulip and The Queensboro Br idge was a s t h e B o r- rose. The crown is in honor of Catherine of completed in 1909 and ended the ough of Queens. Braganza, Queen consort of England in 1683. dependence on ferries and the isoT he rem ai n i ng pa r t s, wh ich lation from Manhattan. The bridge included the majority of Hempstead led to the creation of Queens Bouand Oyster Bay, were still technically part of Queens, but levard to accommodate the traffic, becoming the main were not included in what was considered “Greater New highway of the borough. York.” That was fixed in 1899 when state legislature In the end, consolidation helped each individual borapproved the creation of Nassau County. ough grow. It made New York one of the world’s largest Richard Hourahan, of the Queens Historical Society, cities and an international attraction. explained why the easternmost towns that became Nassau Queens saw many benefits and has become the largest, County didn’t join the Greater New York. most ethnically diverse borough in the world and it “They were rural,” he said. “They had a tradition and wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been incorporated Q their economy was built off of agriculture. They basically to the rest of New York.

C M ANN page 13 Y K

Holiday horror on the General Slocum 1,021 perished when a pleasure cruise became floating inferno on the East River by Michael Gannon Editor

RMS Titanic still was not even an idea when the General Slocum pulled away from its pier in southern Manhattan for the last time on June 15, 1904. S l o c u m w a s n’t lo a d e d w it h r ich , prominent members of aristocratic society from both sides of the Atlantic; its passengers were mostly German-A merican and immigrant women and children on their church’s annual outing. And at just 236 feet, according to Wikipedia, the wooden paddlewheel steamer was less than one-third the length of the 46,000ton floating palace. About all the General Slocum had in common with the ship that would sail for the first

and only time eight years later was tragedy. Stories vary about what set off a small fire below deck and when, but most people on shore agreed that the Slocum had just passed Randall’s Island and was between 130th and 138th streets in the Bronx when it began visibly discharging smoke. It was said to have burned for a considerable period before passengers were alerted. Firehoses and canvass-covered life preservers that had not been touched since the 13-year-old ship was built crumbled and in some cases caught fire. Capt. William Van Schaick ran the ship headlong into a north wind, which fanned the fire further aft as he tried to run aground on North Brother Island. Some jumped into the East River in days when swimming was not

A solemn procession brings some of the more than 1,000 victims of the General Slocum steamship PHOTO COURTESY BOB HOLDEN disaster to Lutheran — now All Faiths — Cemetery in Middle Village. an overly common skill. Mothers threw their children into the river only to discover the cork live preservers turned to dust. A small flotilla of vessels raced to the rescue. Tugboat skipper Jack Wade and his crew were credited with saving more than 150 people. Contemporary accounts report that Wade ordered his men to tie up alongside the Slocum and stay put even as his own vessel started to burn. Bodies would wash ashore in Astoria and elsewhere for days. It would remain the deadliest day in city history until the terror attacks of 9/11 in 2001.

Page 13 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015

Have You Heard the News?

Many of the victims were buried in Queens. Hundreds of them are in All Faith’s Cemetery in Middle Village, including 61 who were never identified. The little German ghetto on the Lower East Side was decimated, with some whole families killed. Multiple sources say their church has been a synagogue since 1940. Monuments to the deceased sprang up in Queens and in Manhattan, including at Tompkins Square Park. Descendants of the victims still return to All Faiths every year as they have for 108 Q years, to attend a memorial service.

St. Agnes Academic High School Congratulates the Queens Chronicle on Celebrating 37 Years of Publishing &' Founded by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville, NY in 1908

In addition to providing students with opportunities for independent study through the Science Research Program at SUNY Albany, St. Agnes has partnered with St. John’s University to offer math and science courses to seniors. This year, they added more technology to the classroom by introducing Google Classroom and launched the St. Agnes Academic High School Chapter of Girls Who Code where students learn coding from experts in the field.

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St. Agnes Academic High School in College Point understands that success for young women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is critical to America’s future. As an expression of their major commitment to expand their rigorous STEM Program, St. Agnes recently completed phase one of a three-year process to build brand new Physics, Chemistry and Biology labs.

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015 Page 14

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LI Motor Parkway a revolutionary road by Andrew Benjamin Chronicle Contributor

If you’re a commuter who regularly drives on the Long Island Expressway, the Belt Parkway or Northern State Parkway, you might get rattled every time you hit the road and you get stuck in that Monday morning peak traffic. In the early 20th century, when motor vehicles were considered a luxury for the rich, you didn’t have to worry about traffic congestion being a problem. You also didn’t have to worry about which highway to take, as there were none. That would change with the construction of the Long Island Motor Parkway, which opened to the public in 1908. The driving force behind the Motor Parkway was William Vanderbilt, the great-grandson of railroad and shipping tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt and an avid racecar driver. As detailed in Long Island historian Howard Kroplick’s book, “The Long Island Motor Parkway,” Vanderbilt held an automobile race called the Vanderbilt Cup. These races happened on public roads where members of the public would come by to cheer on their favorite racers. They sometimes got too close to the action. During the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup, a spectator was killed after stepping onto the course. It was Vanderbilt’s dream, Kroplick wrote, to have a private road that would be restricted to automobiles and where he could have his races. “It has been the dream of every motorist to own a perfect car and to have a road without a speed limit,” Vanderbilt was once quoted as saying. When construction started on the Motor Parkway, it made use of innovative features “such as the use of reinforced concrete, bridges to eliminate grade crossings,

banked curves, guardrails and landscaping,” Kroplick wrote. When the Parkway opened in 1908, it was the first limited-access roadway built in the world. “It certainly influenced every highway that came after it. One was limited -access, there are on ramps or off-ramps. The toll was also unique,” said local historian and Fresh Meadows resident Sergey Kadinsky. “It was unprecedented and one-of-a-kind in its time.” The parkway received praise by writers of the period, with the magazine “Automobile” calling it “an e p o c h i n m o t o r- d r i v e n l a n d transportation.” The Motor Parkway was 48-miles long, stretching from Kissena Corridor in Flushing to Lake Ronkonkoma, LI. If you thought the tolls were expensive now, when the Motor Parkway first opened up, the toll cost $2, which equates to $45 today, Kroplick wrote. Though the Vanderbilt Cup races held on the Motor Parkway were successful, the Motor Parkway struggled to make money, due to economic hardship. In the midst of the Great Depression the toll was lowered, 40 cents at its lowest, but was still too steep for most drivers. “Not enough people could afford to pay its toll,” said Kadinsky. A rival parkway was also being built and it had no tolls: the Northern State Parkway. Robert Moses, who was then head of the Long Island Park Commission, called the private parkway a “white elephant” that would “be given to Nassau and Suffolk Counties

The Long Island Motor Parkway, as seen in 1908. PHOTO COURTESY HOWARD KROPLICK

for nothing someday.” Moses’ prediction came true on April 17, 1938 when Vanderbilt proposed giving the parkway to the public. It got into the hands of the Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties in lieu of back taxes owed by Vanderbilt. Portions of the Motor Parkway still exist today in different forms. When the weather is good and you feel like taking a bike ride, take a trek along the trail that connects Cunningham Park and Alley Pond Park. The path still exists and it is maintained by the Parks Department. Kroplick also said one of the long-lasting impacts of the parkway was becoming “a conduit for the development of Long Island [that] heralded the transformation of the island Q from a rural area to a sprawling suburbia.”

Bridge brought a flood of people in by Mark Lord

For latest newsEDITION visit qchron.com 37THthe ANNIVERSARY

Chronicle Contributor

Longtime Long Island City resident Robert Cohen remembers sitting on his mother’s lap while in a trolley crossing the Queensboro Bridge. “That trolley rode the outside single lane of the bridge,” he said. “I recall coming out from under the bridge as the trolley turned on the track.” Cohen traveled the bridge often, he said. “I recall leaving Manhattan while sitting in the back of the car with my parents in the front bench seat as we passed the Goodman’s Noodles sign on the Queens end, nor th side of the bridge. Then came the Silvercup bread-scented air as we swung around the factory building to exit onto 21st Street. Then I knew I was home.” Of course, that was a long time ago, and for Cohen, as is the case for many others, the bridge holds a special sense of nostalgia. But for the commuters who travel across the span each day (estimated in 2008 to be at 176,000), it takes on a much more utilitarian purpose. Proposals for a bridge that would connect

Queens to Manhattan are recorded as early as 1838. Actual construction didn’t begin until nearly three-quarters of a century later, in 1903; the bridge, known at the time as Blackwell’s Island Bridge, after an earlier name for Roosevelt Island, opened to the public on March 30, 1909. Completion of the bridge followed delays from the collapse of an incomplete span during a windstorm, as well as from labor unrest. Someone even tried to blow part of it up with dynamite. The structure, estimated to have cost $18 million and some 50 human lives, is a two-level double cantilever bridge, using structures that project hor izontally into space, supported on only one end. When the bridge finally opened, removing the East River as an obstacle to the development of the borough, industrialists and other entrepreneurs enjoyed the anticipated boom that followed. Open land was purchased and homes built upon it. Within 10 years, the borough’s population nearly doubled, from 275,000 to half a million. It soared to over a million by 1930. A week-long celebration marked the arrival of the bridge, including parades,

grand-scale fireworks a nd other assor ted entertainments. “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild prom ise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in his classic novel “The Great Gatsby.” It is but one of many references to the bridge in popular cult u r e . H o m e t o w n A view from Roosevelt Island, about a year before the Queensboro heroes Paul Simon Bridge was completed. QUEENS LIBRARY PHOTO VIA ‘HISTORIC PHOTOS OF QUEENS’ and A r t Gar f u n kel immortalized it in their song “The 59th After years of decay, extensive renovation Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” after began in 1987 and continued until 2012, at a its colloquial name; it has been seen in films cost of about $300 million. ranging from 1932’s comedy “No Man of The span, which was officially renamed Her Own,” starring Clark Gable, to “The the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge in March Dark Knight Rises”; and it is visible in cred- 2011, a couple of years prior to the death of its for such television series as “Archie Bun- the former mayor, is maintained by the ker’s Place,” “The King of Queens” and city Department of Transportation. No “Taxi.” tolls are charged for motor vehicles to And, of course, the bridge serves as the cross it — though some officials want to first entry port into Manhattan in the course change that, prompting debate from here Q of the annual New York City marathon. to Albany.

C M ANN page 15 Y K

A suburban oasis and model for more Prestigious Forest Hills Gardens influenced development all over by Victoria Zunitch Chronicle Contributor

The founding of Forest Hills Gardens in 1909 continues to reverberate today in the architectural styles, cultural life and neighborhood plans of not only Central and Eastern Queens and the other boroughs, but the outskirts of other cities, as well. “I think that the fou nding of Forest Hills Gardens presented Queens as a viable option for living in the city,” without having to put up with crowds and grit, said Nicholas Hirschon, author of the book “Images of America: Forest Hills.” Hirschon said it was a revolutionary idea at the time for people living in any major metropolitan area to live in the city without having to put up with city negatives like crowding, grime

and lack of gardens and yards. The history of New York City immigrants had been, for most, one of living in squalid Manhattan tenements. Those who became, or always had been, more wealthy still lived in close proximity to tenements or in more upscale areas that were yet dense, busy city neighborhoods. “A lot of wealthy people were still living in Manhattan but they d id n’t h ave m a ny opt ions,” H i rschon said. Forest Hills Gardens offered close proximity to Manhattan with either large apartments, townhouses or single-family homes with large beautiful gardens and lawns, architecture inspired by a medieval village, he said. “People compared Forest Hills Gardens to a Garden of Eden,” Hirschon said.

These stately homes on Greenway South typify Forest Hills Gardens. “Principal architect Grosvenor Atterbury and urban planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., were visionaries that thought ‘outside of the box,’” said Michael Perlman, author of “Legendary Locals of Forest Hills and Rego Park,” chairman of the Rego-Forest Preservation Council and a Forest Hills resident for 33 years. The wheels were set in motion in 1906, when a Brooklyn attorney named Cord Meyer bought up farmland in the area. Margaret Sage, wife of robber baron Russell Sage, purchased some the land that would become the Gardens from the Cord Meyer Corporation in 1909 and then commissioned Atterbury to design Forest Hills Gardens. The Gardens influenced the style of architecture in contiguous areas in the teens, twen-

PHOTO BY VICTORIA ZUNITCH

ties and thirties along Austin Street, Ascan Avenue, Metropolitan Avenue, Queens Boulevard and 71st/Continental Avenue, as well as the Arbor Close and Forest Close developments in eastern Forest Hills. The Austin Street/Continental Avenue shopping area was traditionally referred to as “The Village” through the 1960s and was explicitly designed to remain in harmony with the Gardens, Perlman said. For example, Perlman notes that the brick and stone spire of the former Corn Exchange Bank Building at the corner of Austin and 71st/ Continental resembles the spire on the Forest Hills Inn, about a block away and just inside the Gardens. Forest Hills wasn’t the only growing continued on page 31

Page 15 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015

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West Side Tennis Club gets US Open Titanic survivor, star player Karl Behr led the relocation movement by Christopher Barca

with relatively small crowds cheering on just a few dozen competitors. But Behr, in a letter signed by nearly 100 fellow members of the Tennis Players Committee, advocated in January 1915 they must respond somehow to the sport’s growing popularity. According to a New York Times article published Ja n. 17, 1915, the players reasoned that moving the event to the New York City area, where 58 of the 100 nationally ranked players hailed from at the time, was the best way to do so. “It is asserted that tennis is no longer the pastime of a few, but has grown to be a national heritage,” wrote the Times, in paraphrasing the letter, “and as such it is contended that it is the duty of all interested in the sport to expand, rather than retard the sport.” Other prominent tennis players disagreed with the idea, with some saying the tournament’s relocation couldn’t logistically happen in just nine months, other cities such as Philadelphia and Boston were interested in hosting and that upgrades were coming to

Associate Editor

Hundreds of thousands of tennis fans and countless reporters from across the world might still be flocking to Newport, RI for the US Open every August had Karl Behr suffered the same fate as the fictional Jack Dawson aboard the Titanic in 1912. W h i le he d id n’t float on a door to stay alive like Rose Dawson did, Behr, a 1906 US Open finalist who also fell for a woman on the ship (Helen Newsome, his eventual wife), escaped on the second lifeboat launched from the Titanic on that fateful April night. And Queens tennis fans should be thrilled that fate didn’t take him to the bottom of the icy North Atlantic. From 1881 until 1914, the scenic New England city acted as host of the US Open, played then under a myriad of different rules compared to today’s tournament. Unlike the sport itself, which was experiencing a notable rise in popularity nationwide, the event was a rather exclusive one,

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been truer than they are today, as US Open officials have said in recent years the tournament — held at the much larger Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing since 1978 — is the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world, with more than 700,000 fans flooding Flushing Meadows Q Corona Park each year since 2012.

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the Newport venue’s grounds. But on Feb. 6, after the West Side Tennis Club’s board of governors unanimously approved a resolution calling for the US Open to be played at the site, the United States Lawn Tennis Association voted 129-119 to move the tournament to Forest Hills and loan the tennis club $100,000 for building improvements at the venue. “The club will stage the greatest tennis tournament the game had ever known in this country,” West Side Tennis Club President Julian Myrick said at the Feb. 6 vote at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan. William Johnston — a San Franciscan who, like Behr, lived through a disaster when he survived the great 1906 earthquake that ravaged his city — went on to win his first US Open title that September, with the topranked player going on to defeat eventual seven-time champion William Tilden in 1919. The US Open temporarily relocated to Philadelphia in 1921, but returned for good in 1924, the year Tilden bested Johnston for the third straight time in the tournament final. By then, the US Open’s popularity had taken off, validating Behr’s prediction made over a decade earlier The Brooklyn native’s words have never

The completion of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909 is seen as the major turning point in putting Queens on the map. But it was the 1915 expansion of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. and the Interborough Rapid Transit into Queens that jumpstarted city dwellers’ migration to the east. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s website, the BMT’s Myrtle Avenue, or M, line entered service on Feb. 22 of that year, with the IRT’s Flushing line — the No. 7 — coming on June 22. Richard Hourahan, collections manager of the Queens Historical Society, said people and subways fed off each other, but that the trains took the lead in the second decade of the 20th century.

“Queens Boulevard was a dirt road in the 1910s,” Hourahan said. “It was supposed to be a Champs-Elysees leading from the bridge. The IND Queens Boulevard line [in August 1933] was a driver for that.” Hourahan said much like it is depicted in Hollywood westerns, rail service spurred real estate investment. “ B a ck i n t h e 1920s there was speculation that the Main Street line would be extended all the way into Bayside,” he said. “People began coming.” A developer named Cord Meyer invested in a portion of Newtown that he called Elmhurst. “They didn’t want people thinking about the smell of Newtown Creek,” he said. “‘Elmhurst’ made you think of trees.” He said the 7 and F lines led to fuller development in places like Forest Hills, Q Rego Park and others.

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The millions of travelers at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports might not think about the hubs’ histories, while running to make a connection, but the airports have come a long way over the decades. LaGuardia, which is named for Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was first home to the Gala Amusement Park, owned by the Steinway family. It was built in 1929 a private flying space, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s website. Commercials f lights didn’t take off from LGA until Dec. 2, 1939. It was originally named Glenn H. Curtiss Airport after aviator Glenn H. Curtiss, and then renamed North Beach Airport, finally taking the name New York Municipal Airport-LaGuardia Field in 1939.

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LaGuardia is one of the busiest airports in the U.S. today, with more than 26 million passengers in 2014 and approximately 11,000 employees. As for John F. Kennedy Airport, commercial flights didn’t begin until July 1948. Starting with humble plans for a 1,000-acre airport, construction began on the previous Idlewild golf course in 1942, but the final product — Idlewild Airport — turned out five times that size. Previous names were the Maj. Gen. Alexander E. Anderson Airport and New York International Airport-Anderson Field, according to an article from the Toledo Blade. It was renamed John F. Kennedy Airport on Dec. 24, 1963, following the assassination of the nation’s 35th President. The airport, which has about 37,000 employees, had more than 53 million pasQ sengers in 2014.

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World’s Fairs left a wealth of legacies From depot to zoo, to Flushing Meadows Corona Park and more by Liz Rhoades Chronicle Contributor

When the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs opened in Flushing Meadows people from around the world came to gawk at the pavilions, eat foreign cuisine and enjoy a day of m a k i ng me mor ies. Though the fairs are long over, their legacies live on in Queens with outstanding museums, institutions and improved infrastructure. T he man beh i nd both fairs was Robert Moses, who was also instr umental in designing roadways and bridges as chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority from 1946 to 1968. He created the Whitestone Bridge in anticipation of the 1939 fair. The bridge and the fair opened the same day in 1939. In 1961, Moses widened and extended the Grand Central Parkway in preparation of the upcoming fair. The $40 million project

tied in the roadway to the Whitestone Expressway. Moses always had it in his mind to develop the ash dump into a park. He planned to use revenue from the 1939 fair to do that. Although the property was vastly improved by holding the event there, it was not a money-making success and Moses was stymied in fulfilling his goal. However, the template was set. The basic fair infrastruct u re w it h st reet s, fountains and ligthing remained. When the second fair was announced for the same site, Moses believed he could finish the park and make vast improvements. Unfortunately, the 1964-65 fair also was not an economic success so his dream did not entirely materialize. But more structures remained this time and have had a lasting effect there. By transforming an ash heap and marsh into 1,255 acres of parkland and forming

President John F. Kennedy, center, was shown a model of the 1964-65 World’s Fair by Robert Moses, center left, on Dec. 15, 1962. Kennedy also broke ground for the fair’s Federal Building. Willow and Meadow lakes, Moses created Queens’ largest park that is heavily used all year long today. Other improvements as a result of the fairs included the Willets Point Long Island Rail Road station, which opened in time for the 1939 event and was expanded in 1964 to serve Mets fans at Shea Stadium and fairgoers.

The nearby subway stop also benefited from the fairs. It was enlarged to handle expected crowds and in 1964, the northbound side platform and ramp were added. Some pavilions and structures from both fairs survived and remain popular attractions. The 1939 New York City Building continued on page 31

When GI Joe came Queens once home marching home ... to United Nations ... Eastern Queens was ready to take off by Michael Gannon

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As World War II began going the Allies’ way, the country needed to craft a way for its returning soldiers and sailors to resume their lives and start families. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or the GI Bill, proved as much a boon to Eastern Queens as it did New York City’s veterans. Richard Hourahan, collections manager for the Queens Historical Society, said the post-World War II buildup was far different from that following the doughboys’ return from Europe after World War I. “With Queens, it wasn’t just World War I,” he said. “Construction was booming because people had money. There was a drive to leave Manhattan. Places like Jackson Heights seemed to spring up over night. It wasn’t just Queens — places near the cit y l i ke lower

Westchester County too.” But by the end of World War II, “a lot of Western Queens was already developed,” he said. Real estate investors, however, had speculated on farmland in the 1930s, and they were there to meet the demand for good, low-cost family housing and a lot of it. Chronicle columnist Ron Marzlock wrote earlier this year that places like Bellerose and Floral Park underwent a construction revolution. “Most of the land and houses in the area were sold quickly,” Marzlock wrote. “And by the 1950s, if one had not gotten in on the ground floor, one had to look to booming Nassau County to buy an affordable, brand-new home.” Come the end of the Korean War, star t-up developments like Levittown to the east were in line to let veterans Q do just that.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park the site by Hannah Douglas Associate Editor

For a few years, the United Nations headquarters were in Queens at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Held at the New York City Building, the newly established General Assembly used the space from 1946 to 1950. The Queens Museum, which now occupies the space, calls it “one of the proudest periods in the history” of the building. “Flushing Meadows Corona Park was being considered as the organization’s future permanent headquarters site,” according to the Queens Museum website. That was until the site of the U.N.’s current facility in Manhattan was made available, with construction starting on the new building on Oct. 24, 1949, according to a fact sheet on the Un ited Nat ions website. A nu mb e r of world leaders spent time in Queens,

however. In fact, both the decision to create UNICEF and the Palestine partition to create Israel took place there, according to the website. With the United Nations General Assembly using the building, it required a great deal of renovating to its interior. Skating and roller rinks had to be covered. An addition of a larger annex on the facility’s north side was made for the dining room for the delegates, an exhibition hall and a public cafeteria. The General Assembly was put together where the Queens Museum’s sky-lit gallery now sits. There were also offices, meeting rooms and press, radio and television facilities housed in the rest of the building. After the U.N. left in 1950, the addition was taken out, and was returned to a recreation space for the park, restoring the skating and roller Q rinks.

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LIRR Thanksgiving Eve crash kills 78 by Michael Gannon Chronicle Contributor

Every day, thousands of people drive beneath the Long Island Rail Road trestle across Metropolitan Avenue, probably not knowing that they are passing the site of the deadliest crash in the LIRR’s 181-year history. The accident killed 78 people in the evening rush hour on Nov. 22, 1950, the night before Thanksgiving. It took place west of the trestle near 126th Street when Train 174, headed to Babylon with engineer Benjamin Pokorny at the controls, rear-ended the He m p s t e a d - b ou nd Train 780, which had stopped because of brake problems. David Keller, now a Florida resident, is a Long Island Rail Road historian, railroad enthusiast and operator of the website trainsarefun.com. In an email, he provided the Chronicle with commentary on the accident, links to related articles on his website and a copy of the 11-page post-accident investigation report drafted by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The report found that 780 was approaching a curve that would take it into Jamaica Station, just 1.2 miles away. Engineer William Murphy passed a signal that told him to

reduce speed. After slowing further at a second signal, the brakes would not release. He dsent brakeman Bert Biggam, in the rear car, to signal any approaching trains by lantern. But Biggam then heard power restored to the motors and got back inside. He had only his flashlight when he saw 174 1,000 feet away, closing in at 35 miles per hour. Pokorny had just left the Kew Gardens station. Crew members said he was alone in the control compartment at the time of impact. No. 174 also was instructed to slow down at the first signal. Investigators theorized Pokorny saw the second tower where a signal to proceed — intended for Murphy in 780 — had just been posted and possibly thought that meant any train ahead of him had been cleared. “[I]t could not be determined why the train was not operated at a restricted speed as required ...” the report stated. Keller said Pokorny and Murphy both began their careers in steam engines. He has a document from the late 1940s authorizing Pokorny’s move to the new electric engines. Pokorney clearly spotted what was looming at him out of the darkness at 6:29 p.m. He initiated emergency braking procedures, but would have neither the time nor distance to slow down.

The evening rush hour turned deadly in Kew Gardens on Thanksgiving Eve 1950 when an eastbound LIRR train hit another that was stalled, killing 78 people. PHOTO COURTESY DAVID KELLER ARCHIVE The impact pushed the 12-car No. 780 ahead 75 feet. Biggam was able to make it to the next car forward, though he was injured when thrown against the ceiling by the impact. Pokorny was at his post as the superstructure of the car he was in was sheared off, cleaving the rear car of 780 in half lengthwise. “The sad thing was they identified him

only because he was wearing his motorman’s gloves,” Keller wrote of the engineer. Years later a mutual friend who was an LIRR conductor told Keller that Biggam credited his uniform cap with absorbing most of the blow, sparing him serious or fatal injury. The official report found the cause of the accident to be failure to operate Train 174 in Q accordance with a signal indication.

Kitty Genovese: tale of a heartless city by Michael Gannon

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Winston Mosley approached Kitty Genovese as she got out of her car at the Kew Gardens railroad station the night of March 13, 1964. The 28-year-old bar manager must have sensed immediately that something was wrong — she turned, not to the right as usual to enter her apartment at the rear of her building, but to her left, fleeing in terror along Austin Street, running uphill toward brightly lit Lefferts Boulevard, and people. She never made it. Mosley caught her on the sidewalk beneath a lamp post and stabbed her. Genovese’s screams alerted at least one neighbor who called out to Mosley, causing him to flee. Ten minutes later he would return, locating the badly wounded Genovese in a doorway behind her building at 82-70 Austin St. He stabbed her another 15 times and raped her before stealing $49 and leaving her to die. The attack shocked a city that had not yet

become used to horrific killings, and a contemporary press report gave birth to a sincediscredited urban legend that 38 neighbors heard her cries for help and did nothing. New York City picked up the reputation of a cold, uncaring metropolis and experts wrote and spoke at length for decades about the “Kitty Genovese Syndrome” wherein people would not come to the aid of a stranger in need because they assume someone else will do it, or they just don’t want to get involved. In truth, the NYPD received calls about bot h at t ack s. T he de pa r t me nt wou ld change how it assessed emergency calls as a result. Six days later, as Genovese’s family prepared to bring her to Connecticut for burial, Mosely was arrested during a burglary. He confessed not only to killing and robbing Genovese, but also killing 24-year-old mother Annie Mae Johnson of South Ozone Park weeks before, and 15-year-old Barbara Kralik of Springfield Gardens in 1963. Johnson’s body was exhumed and many

The murder of Kitty Genovese by Winston Mosley on a Kew Gardens street created a national FILE PHOTOS sensation amidst tales that dozens of neighbors ignored her desperate cries for help. details from a second autopsy supported Mosley’s confession, though he was never tried. No evidence ever tied him to Kralik’s murder. He was originally ordered to die in the electric chair, but had his sentence commuted to life in prison after an appellate court ruled that the jury should have been allowed to hear evidence of mental illness. But it would not be the last time he would be in legal trouble. In 1968 he escaped. Before his recapture, he took a married couple hostage and raped the wife. He also participated in the 1971 Attica prison riot that left 33 inmates and 10 hostages dead.

Mosley, now 80, is scheduled for his 17th parole hearing this week, with a decision due mid-month. The office of Queens District Attorney Richard Brown sent the Parole Board a four-page letter in August demanding that he never be set free. “Winston Mosley is a callous, vicious, violent man who is a serial rapist, burglar and multiple murderer,” wrote Executive Assistant DA Charles Testagrossa. “... [He] is not capable of living a law-abiding life ... The passage of 51 years in no way diminishes the horrendous and incomprehensible nature of the Q crimes he has committed.”

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The Beatles at Shea changed everything Queens as ‘entertainment capital’ by Peter C. Mastrosimone Editor-in-Chief

Just after America’s favorite TV host introduced them with five quick lines, the world’s favorite rock ’n’ roll band ran onto the field at Shea Stadium to a deafening roar. “Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles jogged to the stage set up above second base, shook hands with Ed Sullivan, and without a pause jumped right into their trademark remake of “Twist and Shout.” It was the beginning of a concert like none ever before, one that would change rock forever and, according to at le a s t one mu sic a l expert, highlight a brief time when Queens was “the entertainment capital of the world.” “John Lennon even said Shea Stadium was ‘a happening,’” said Joe Fuoco, the musical virtuoso, songwriter, teacher and historian who runs Joe Fuoco’s Music Center in Ridgewood with his wife, and bassist, Jeanette. “I think what he meant by that was this was the event in the history of music

that kicked off what became arena rock. No one else had ever played to an audience that size. It was the greatest concert in the world. “It just brought the whole music business, and the whole way you listened to music and the whole way you went to concerts into a new dimension, and it happened right here in Queens.” Honored by their country, The show was rollicking and fast-paced. The boys looked like they were having a ball, Lennon clowning around, Paul McCartney sometimes pointing his bass straight up in the air as he played it, George Harrison grinning broadly when not looking studious, as was his wont, and Ringo Starr f lipping his hair all over the place as he banged on the drums. They were all drenched with sweat but showed none of the weariness that only a year later would lead them to quit touring for good. They played just a dozen songs, four of them covers, and the concert only lasted about a half-

Paul McCartney, left, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr rock Queens. NEMS ENTERPRISES, ED SULLIVAN PRODUCTIONS, SUBAFILMS

hour, not counting the opening acts. The crowd of 55,600 loved every second of it. Footage shows not just a lot of shaking and shimmying to the music but girls screaming, crying uncontrollably, clawing at fencing, running out onto the field or being carried out of the stands by police, passed out. It was Beatlemania. Decorated by their queen, Fuoco wasn’t there — “I always regretted it; I couldn’t get tickets” — but saw the show on TV later and has seen it countless times since. “It certainly inspired me,” he said. “I already loved music, I already loved them and I can’t put it into words; once you saw it, you just said,

‘Wow, there’s never been anything like it.’” As a musician who’s played for decades, he’s amazed the band could pull it off the way they did, the technology of the time being not quite ready for a stadium concert. The sound of the instruments came out of the group’s three Vox amplifiers, but their vocals were hooked into Shea’s PA system, coming out of center field. “They said, ‘We could fill Shea Stadium,’ and they did,” Fuoco said. “But they didn’t really have the proper equipment to play it. Yet they stayed together. Unreal. Musically, it’s unreal.” He mentioned how much better the system was just four years later at Woodstock, adding that while many consider that star-studded, four-day festival to be the greatest rock show ever, “without this, there is no Woodstock.”

Page 23 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015

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And loved here in America, Between the 1964-65 World’s Fair, the Mets with their new ballpark and that magical night of Aug. 15, 1965, Queens seemed like the center of the world to 10-year-old Fuoco. “When I go back to my childhood, I always say ’64 and ’65 were the greatest years in the sixties in Queens,” he said. “In those two years, Queens was the capital of the world when it came to entertainment.” Here are The Beatles!”

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Super Bowl III was a game for the ages by Christopher Barca and Paige Mallory Passman Associate Editor/Chronicle Contributor

You could say 1969 was a special year when it comes to Queens sports. The New York Mets’ first World Series championship in franchise history immediately comes to mind, but the New York Jets also called the borough home back then. And like the underdog Amazin’s, who beat the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles, Gang Green overcame the odds against an opponent f rom the same city and brought a Super Bowl title to Queens in 1969. The roadwork to an N FL championship was laid in 1959 when spor t s broadcaster Harry Wismer successfully petitioned the newly formed American Football League to allow for the creation of a New York franchise called the Titans that would play at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. After being sold for $1 million, and in turn being renamed the Jets, in 1963, the struggling organization relocated across the city to

Shea Stadium along with the Mets in 1964, where both teams started to see success. Gang Green drafted University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath with the top pick in the 1965 AFL Draft, with “Broadway Joe” leading the Jets to their first-ever winning record in 1967. With Namath signed to a $427,000 contract, the Jets had become one of the AFL’s most popular teams as their records had improved each year. After going 11-3 in the regular season, the Queens squad found t he m s elve s at t he O r a nge Bowl i n Miami on Jan. 12, 1969 to take on the powerhouse Baltimore Colts, who were 17-point favorites, in Super Bowl III. But in a precursor to the week-long media frenzy seen today prior to the Super Bowl, Namath created headlines by boldly guaranteeing three days before the game that the Jets would upset the heavily favored Colts, led by quarterback and league MVP Earl Morrall. As soon as the game began, it appeared

“the guarantee,” as it would later be called, would never come to fruition, as the Jets gained just three yards on the opening drive before being forced to punt. The Colts marched down the field to the Jets’ 19-yard line on their first possession, but New York’s defense held tough and kept Baltimore from the end zone. The Colts missed a short-range field goal, but they again threatened in the second quarter after a Jets fumble gave Baltimore the ball just 12 yards from the goal line. On the third down, Morrall fired a pass to the tight end Tom Mitchell in the end zone, but the ball bounced off the shoulder pads and into the air, with New York’s Randy Beverly coming up with the interception. The first touchdown of the game was scored in the second qauarter by the Jets on the ensuing 12-play drive, orchestrated by Namath. Fullback Matt Snell, who just earlier that week had f luid drained from his knee, reached the end zone on a four yard run, the only touchdown the Jets would score. Namath led the offense down the field for two field goals in the third quarter and another in the fourth. A Colts touchdown with three minutes left in the contest proved to be too little, too late as the Jets defeated Baltimore 16-7 in what is viewed as one of the biggest upsets in the history of sports. After being named the game’s most valuable player, Namath — the only quarterback to be named Super Bowl MVP despite not throwing a touchdown pass in the game —

Joe Namath

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famously ran off the field with his index finger raised, yelling “We’re number one.” The eventual Hall of Famer did produce solid numbers, as he completed 17 of 28 passes for 206 yards. Namath’s number was retired in 1985, a year after the Jets left Queens in favor of East Rutherford, NJ — where they have shared a stadium with the New York Giants ever since — despite the franchise’s interest in redeveloping Shea Stadium and Mayor Ed Koch’s attempt to renegotiate the team’s expiring Q lease on the venue.

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The World Champion New York Mets Two teams that reflected their times by Lloyd Carroll Chronicle Contributor

A few days after the Mets lost the 2015 World Series to the Kansas City Royals, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson held a post-mortem press conference. He accurately captured the mood of many fans when he said, “Twenty-nine teams go home unhappy but I think that in many ways the twenty-ninth team goes home unhappiest of all.” What Alderson meant is that it’s agonizing to come so close to achieving baseball’s pinnacle and yet wind up as an also-ran. Yes, the Mets did win the National League pennant, but here in the USA we value gold medals, not silver, so it is a bittersweet feeling. But we can hope reminiscing about the Mets’ two World Champion teams as part of the Queens Chronicle’s anniversary celebration will warm the hearts of fans of the Amazin’s as opposed to putting salt in a recent wound. A lot of baby boomers, with the possible exception of those who grew up in Baltimore, will recall the Miracle Mets of 1969 with fondness. Yes, watching the Mets win the World Series that year in five games as they took three straight from the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles at Shea Stadium to wrap it up was understandably special to Mets fans, but what happened in October of 1969 was inspirational to nearly everyone. The Mets were in their seventh year of existence and their fifth playing in Flushing when they defied all odds. They had never had a winning record in a season and for most of their history had been considered a joke. Their image of lovable losers was created in the media and was embraced by their first manager, the legendary Casey Stengel, who knew that he had bad teams and was trying to deflect attention from his players by appearing eccentric and

comical. It worked — for a few years anyways. An oft-repeated joke was that the Mets wouldn’t win a World Series until men walked on the moon. Technically that turned out to be true, since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their lunar stroll three months before Shea Stadium erupted when All-Star outfielder Cleon Jones hauled in Orioles second baseman (and, ironically, future Mets manager) Dave Johnson’s fly ball as the final play of the ’69 World Series. In 1968, a year before the most unexpected event in sports happened, the Mets showed signs that things were changing when they hired former Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman and original Met Gil Hodges as manager. The team also had a pair of young pitchers who were instilling fear in National League hitters, Jerry Koosman and future Hall of Famer Tom

Seaver. Nonetheless the Mets won just 73 games, which was their best year yet but not enough to indicate what would happen the following season. The Vietnam War was raging and the nation was quite divided, but the moon landing and the Miracle Mets proved that Americans could come together and that anything was possible as the 1970s beckoned. The enter tain ment industr y couldn’t get enough of the Miracle Mets. The entire team recorded a si ngalong albu m for Budd a h Records and appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” to sing the best tune from that album, “Heart,” a tune which, ironically, was the

showstopper from “Damn Yankees.” The writers from “The Brady Bunch” even put a ’69 Mets reference in an episode in which Greg Brady’s baseball team was having trouble winning games. Although the Mets did win the National League pennant in 1973 it was a bit of a fluke, as they barely finished with a record above .500 that year. The 1970s were arguably the lowest ebb in the team’s history. The Mets’ original owners, the Payson family, and the team president, M. Donald Grant, did not want to change with the times by going after free-agent players. The “reserve clause,” which bound a player to his team forever unless that ballclub released or traded him, was struck down in 1975 by a federal arbitrator, Peter Seitz. Even worse, Grant did not want to give the team’s star player, Tom Seaver, better known in the media as “The Franchise,” anything close to his market value. A war of words between Seaver and Grant ensued, and in a fit of pique, Grant traded Tom Terrific to the Cincinnati Reds on June 15, 1977. Shea Stadium immediately became a ghost town as the Mets routinely couldn’t even crack five figures in attendance on most nights. The Mets were losing so much money that the Payson family decided to sell the team in late 1979 to publishing heir Nelson Doubleday and his partner in the venture, real estate developer Fred Wilpon. Doubleday appointed former Baltimore Orioles executive Frank Cashen to become the Mets general manager. It took awhile but Cashen was able to trade for first baseman Keith Hernandez and catcher Gary Carter while drafting such phenomenal young talent as outfielders Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry and pitcher Dw ig ht “Doc” Gooden, who became the key players for the last Mets team to win it all, the 1986 squad. The miracle of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series — when Mookie Wilson hit a slow ground ball that went under the glove of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the 10th inning to give the Mets an improbable win — has been shown and retold countless times. The Mets would go on to win Game 7 and enjoy a ticker-tape parade two days later in Manhattan’s Financial District.

The 1969 Mets showed the Baltimore Orioles, and everyone, that indeed they were all grown up, when they beat the Birds four games to one in the World Series. Below, members of the winning 1986 squad, who took down FILE PHOTOS the Boston Red Sox four games to three, at spring training. The 1986 Mets ref lected the culture of their times as well, and frequently not in a good way. There was an almost anything goes, short-term gratification mentality in the Eighties that was reflected in numerous Hollywood films such as “Less Than Zero” and “Wall Street.” Drug use and drinking were common among the 1986 Mets. Gooden missed the victory parade because he was high from cocaine use by his own admission and would enter rehab shortly afterwards. It would take Gooden many years to overcome his drug addiction. The same can be said for Darryl Strawberry. In July 1986 four Mets — Ron Darling, Tim Teufel, Bob Ojeda, and Rick Aguilera — were arrested by Houston police for causing a ruckus in a dance club down there. Three months later, following their National League Championship Series victory over the Houston Astros, the Mets caused damage to the plane carrying them back from Houston to LaGuardia Airport. Cashen was livid, but

team manager Johnson, by then known as Davey, laughed it off when Cashen presented the team a bill for $5,000 from the airline and he told his players that ownership would pay the damages. The Mets “bad boys” image may have given fans a sense of chip-on-the-shoulder pride at the time as well as forcing the team to play hard to back it up (they did win 108 games that year) but it came with a price. The following year Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez got into a fist fight during a spring training team photo session, which may have been a harbinger of the kind of year that it was going to be. The Mets wound up in second place in the National League East. They did win the NL East title in 1988 but lost to the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. It would be another 11 years until the Mets returned to the postseason. The Royals lost the 2014 World Series but came back to win the World Series the following year. Mets fans can only hope that their team can follow that blueprint. Q

C M ANN page 27 Y K

Son of Sam preyed on Queens residents by Christopher Barca Associate Editor

The quiet, residential streets of Floral Park, Flushing, Bayside and Forest Hills weren’t so tranquil in the mid-1970s. Instead, they were among the hunting grounds of one of America’s most notorious serial killers. At a young age, it was obvious that Brooklyn native David Berkowitz, who was given up for adoption as an infant, was dangerous. As a teenager, he exhibited telltale signs of psychosis, setting over 1,400 fires and torturing animals. But with the July 29, 1976 shootings of 18-year- old Don na Lauria, who died, and 19-year-old Jody Valenti as they sat in their car outside a Bronx nightclub, the Son of Sam was born. Berkowitz’s first Queens attack, in the early morning hours of Oct. 23, 1976, involved Carl Denaro, 25, and his date, 18-year-old Rosemary Keenan, both of whom were sitting in the latter’s parked Volkswagen on 160th Street in Flushing. As they chatted,

the killer approached the vehicle, pulled out his .44-caliber handgun and shot at them. Keenan was unhurt and Denaro survived a gunshot wound to the head, but one of the Son of Sam’s next two Queens victims was even more gravely wounded. One month later, on Nov. 27, Joanne Lomino, 18, and Donna DiMasi, 17, were sitting on the former’s porch in Floral Park when Berkowitz walked up to them and fired. DiMasi was hit but not severely injured. However, Lomino’s spine was struck by a bullet, paralyzing her. Berkowitz’s next two shootings, which left two Queens girls dead, occurred just feet from each other in Forest Hills and left the area in terror. Just after midnight on Ja n. 30, 1977, 30-year-old John Diel and his fiancee, 26-year-old Ridgewood resident Christine Freund, were sitting in the former’s car in Station Square when, as in his other crimes, the serial killer approached the vehicle and fired into it without saying a word.

Forest Hills resident Virginia Voskerichian was one of nine people shot and two killed in Queens FILE PHOTOS during serial murderer David Berkowitz’s year-long reign of terror. Diel was unhurt, but Freund, who is buried in Linden Hill Cemetery, was fatally shot twice in the head. On March 8, it was Forest Hills resident Virginia Voskerichian whose life was cut far too short at the hands of the sadistic killer. She was on her way home from attending classes at Barnard College in Manhattan when Berkowitz approached the 20-year-old as she walked in front of 4 Dartmouth St., just minutes from her Exeter Street home. Realizing what was about to happen, Voskerichian held the books she was carrying in front of her face to protect herself. However, they were no match for the speeding bullet, which passed though the pages and into her head, killing her. The woman’s older brother, Deek, in an exclusive interview with the Chronicle in 2012, said he still carries with him a burning

hatred for his sister’s murderer. “Only he knows why he did it,” Voskerichian said. “I hope he dies a miserable death.” While Voskerichian was the final Queens resident to be killed by Berkowitz, he also wounded 20-year-old Maspeth resident Sal Lupo and 17-year-old Judy Placido with gunfire as they sat in a parked car near the intersection of 211th Street and 45th Road in Bayside shortly after leaving Elephas, a disco club at 210-22 Northern Blvd. Berkowitz’s reign of terror, which spanned Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, ended on Aug. 10, 1977 when he was arrested in Yonkers, NY, but not before six city residents were killed and seven more wounded. Now a supposedly repentant born-again Christian, the serial killer is serving six consecutive life sentences at Sullivan CorrecQ tional Facility in Fallsburg, NY.

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Ferraro’s run, and career, led the way by Cristina Schreil Chronicle Contributor

She may have been born upstate in Newburgh, NY, but Geraldine Ferraro came to be known as a true adopted daughter of Queens. The first female vice-presidential candidate, Ferraro is regarded as a heroine to many women nationwide. More than four years after Ferraro lost a long battle to multiple myeloma at age 75, many still remember her as the congresswoman, assistant district attorney, ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Forest Hills resident and former teacher who called the World’s Borough home. Ferraro moved to Forest Hills Gardens with her husband, John Zaccaro, in the 1950s. From there, much of her life and career was very tied to the borough; she taught in public schools in Astoria and in 1974, was appointed assistant district attorney by Queens DA Nicholas Ferraro. She worked in the special victims bureau, prosecuting sex crimes and cases concerning the abuse of children and senior citizens. Starting in 1978 for three terms,

Ferraro represented the 9th Congressional District, which then encompassed areas of Western and Central Queens. Amid her work in public service, many most strongly associate Ferraro with her landmark vice-presidential run in 1984 after nominee Walter Mondale picked her as running mate. After Ferraro in particular faced criticism on the campaign trail — including claims that her Italian-American family had ties to organized crime — the two ultimately lost in a huge landslide to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. A few years later, she also lost runs for the U.S. Senate in 1992 and in 1998. But, many to this day stress that while Fe r r a ro los t t he s e efforts, she never disappeared from people’s minds as a fighter for female equality. “Geraldine Ferraro is u ndoubt e d ly a n i n s p i r a t io n t o a l l women. She was also the embodiment of the American dream of upward mobility,” City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) said in an emailed statement. “Geraldine Ferraro was not from a privileged background.

Former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, for whom the corner of Austin Street and Ascan Avenue in Forest FILE PHOTO, LEFT, AND PHOTO BY CRISTINA SCHREIL Hills was ceremoniously renamed in 2012. She was a working-class mother of three children who I would often see on Austin Street buying groceries for her family.” Koslowitz noted that Ferraro progressed from schoolteacher to assistant district attorney and then onto congresswoman. “In that sense, she remains an inspiration to all Americans,” Koslowitz said of Ferraro’s climb. Koslowitz added that she has seen young women become “invigorated” by the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton. But, many have stressed there is still a dearth of females in government — a similar landscape Ferraro faced in her time.

“I have a picture in my office of the members of the NYC Council in 1962. All of the council members were men. Today, 15 of the 51 council members are women. This is an improvement over 1962, but still nowhere near half the membership we would expect to see,” Koslowitz wrote. Borough President Melinda Katz said Ferraro was one of the people who helped her get started in politics and government and “had faith in me 22 years ago when a lot of people did not.” When Katz was on the City Council, Ferraro was among her constitutents. continued on page 31

Pope St. John Paul II visits Aqueduct One of his miracles: Getting city, civics to spruce up the community by Anthony O’Reilly

speaking words of comfort to the afflicted,” he said. Community Board 10 Chairwoman Almost 20 years before Pope Francis Betty Braton was in the crowd that day touched down at John F. Kennedy Interand recalled it as “a wonderful event.” national Airport, a saint visited the “That was a major event for the City borough. of New York and it was an honor for our Pope St. John Paul II blessed Queens area to host it,” Braton said, adding she with his presence on Oct. 6, 1995 — the would’ve loved to second and last time he would be in the see Pope Francis World’s Borough during his papacy — make a trip to when he said Mass at Aqueduct Race Sout h Q ue e n s Track. during his SepWhile revelling in the beauty of the tember visit. borough, the Polish native questioned if “It would’ve Queens and the rest of the city had lost been lovely, but sight of God. I’m not in charge “In the midst of the magnificent scienof his scheduling.” tific and technological civilization of In 2005, shortly after John Paul II which America is proud, and especially died in his home in Vatican City, here in Queens, in Brooklyn, in New York, is there room for the mystery of Pope St. John Paul II challenged Queens Queens residents told the Chronicle of their memories about the AqueGod?” he asked during his homily in residents to spread the word of God. front of 75,000 people. “Is there room for FILE PHOTO duct Mass. Former Queens Chronicle photograthe revelation of life — that transcendent life which Christ brings us at the price of his Cross and through pher Daniel Derrella in a firsthand account of the day called the Mass one of the most beautiful experiences of his career. the victory of his Resurrection?” “I’ve met the governor and former governor and taken their His challenge to the crowd, who had flocked from all over to hear him speak, was to spread the word of God to 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 neighbors. “We ought to invite others to come to us by stretching out a Catholic Church, will be the one moment I’ll never forget,” helping hand to those in need, by welcoming the newcomer, by Derrella wrote.

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Howard Beach native Kevin Connolly was amazed at how spiritual the Mass was in an outdoor area with tens of thousands of people. “As huge as it was, it was very spiritual. There were thousands of people, but they were respectful and powerful. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I thought at the time,” he told the Chronicle 10 years ago. Other than inspiring those who were at the Mass, the visit also benefited the neighborhood by having it cleaned up in a way many had not seen before. “Things were painted, things were repaired. I wished the pope could’ve come here much more often,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach), who did not attend the Mass. “It was a really special time.” The cleanup work was a team effort between area civic associations and various city agencies, Braton said. “There was a great deal of volunteer effort done,” Braton added. “We were the beneficiaries of it.” The saint’s first Queens appearance as the leader of the Catholic Church came in 1979, a year after he became the first non-Italian pope since 1523, when he said Mass at Shea Stadium. During his time as cardinal archbishop of Krakow, Poland, Karol Wojtyla — the saint’s birth name — once stayed at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Maspeth in 1969. A portion of 56th Road in front of the church was Q renamed in his honor last April.

C M ANN page 29 Y K

AA Flight 587 — a ‘horrible tragedy’ Plane crash killed 265 people on this day in history — Nov. 12 by Hannah Douglas Associate Editor

American Airlines Flight 587 forever scarred the Rockaways, when an Airbus A300-600 aircraft crashed into a residential area in Belle Harbor, claiming 265 lives on Nov. 12, 2001. The crash was caused by a vertical fin breaking off from the rudder in-f light, the result of the first off icer’s “unnecessary and excessive” use of rudder controls in response to wake turbulence from a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 ahead of the American Airlines plane. Additionally, improper pilot training under the Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program was also ruled a factor contributing to the accident, according to the National Transportation

Safety Board’s report. “The rudder was moved stop to stop in a hurry ... it was not designed to be moved that vigorously all the way from one stop to the other stop, and that exceeded the capability of the vertical fin,” NTSB chairman Christopher Hart said Friday in an interview with the Queens Chronicle. Additionally, both of the plane’s engines separated in-f light, the report indicated. T here were 265 total people killed — 251 passengers, two pilots, seven flight attendants and five people on the ground, according to the NTSB report. A memorial commemorating them stands at the foot of Beach 116th Street. Flight attendant Carol Palm, 52, who was

The crash site of American Airlines Flight 587, which landed in a residential neighborhood in PHOTO COURTESY NOAA Belle Harbor on Nov. 12, 2001, an incident that claimed 265 lives. from Rego Park and had worked for American Airlines for 33 years, was among those who died in the crash. The incident, which occured just two months after 9/11, was at first suspected to be a terrorist act, but the NTSB later ruled out terrorism using information from the flight data recorder, Hart said. The flight originated from John F. Kennedy Airport, and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, was the destination. Following the incident, American Airlines altered its pilot training program on the issue of rudder use. “A lot of people ended up changing train-

ing following that,” Hart said. “That’s one of the advantages of this industry is that we get the word out to everybody, that’s where you [the media] come in handy because you help us get the word out, so the entire industry learns from these problems and not just the airline involved.” Jim Hall, former NTSB chairman, called the event’s investigation “very significant,” “That neighborhood in Queens was dramatically impacted,” Hall said. “The investigation did make changes to prevent [the] occurrence of this action but that in no way lessened the horrible tragedy that occurred Q on that day in 2001.”

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The unforgettable Hudson miracle Capt. Sullenberger — the ‘perfect man for that moment in time’ by Hannah Douglas Associate Editor

The legendary landing of US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320, on the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009, made for a remarkable day that is difficult for most to forget. Regarded as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” the aircraft’s ditching on the river did not result in a single fatality, and there were 150 passengers, including one lap-held child and five crew onboard — a total of 155 people, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s accident report. Caused by a bird strike with Canada geese, both engines had “almost total loss of thrust,” and therefore resulted in Capt. Chesley Sullenberger and his crew landing and evacuating the afflicted aircraft on the river. The plane was still on its climb after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, and it was headed for Seattle, Washington, with a layover in Charlotte, NC, when it was hit at about 3:27 p.m. “The captain and the cabin crew were all

involved in some very quick thinking and responded admirably to an unanticipated situation,” Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Friday in an interview with the Queens Chronicle. Indeed, the decision-making by the f light’s crew members contributed to the incident’s “survivability,” the report stated. “Captain Sullenberger was the perfect man for that moment in time,” Jim Hall, former chairman of the NTSB, said, mentioning how Sullenberger was not only an “excellent” commercial pilot, but he too had fighter pilot training and experience. The right engine remained attached to the aircraft. The left e ng i ne wa s fou nd eight days after the accident on Jan. 23, 2009, near the initial impact spot of the plane. Additionally, the airplane was ditched near the NY WW Port Imperial Ferry Terminal in Weehawken, NJ. According to the NSTB accident report, seven NY WW vessels responded to the incident and recovered

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Passengers evacuate US Airways Flight 1549 as it floats on the Hudson River. Of the 155 people WIKIPEDIA PHOTO onboard, there were no fatalities in the incident. people. The first ship arrived at about 3:34 p.m., with the other six pulling up at about 3:40 p.m. One FDNY fire rescue boat and two small USCG boats also made it to the scene at approximately 3:39 and 3:48, respectively, the report also indicated. About 98 percent of wildlife strikes to

planes involve birds, costing the U.S. civil aviation industry around $625 million per year, the report stated. Sullenberger, also called “Sully,” will be featured in an upcoming film called “Miracle on the Hudson,” starring Tom Hanks and Q directed by Clint Eastwood.

Sandy devastated much of the boro NY still hasn’t recovered from storm by Anthony O’Reilly Associate Editor

More than three years later, the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy can still be seen — and felt — throughout parts of Queens and the rest of the city. As the storm made landfall on Oct. 29, 2012, it brought along winds gusting at more than 80 mph and rainfall that pummeled coastal communities. In Queens, the southern part of the borough and the Rockaways felt the brunt of the storm’s wrath. Along Cross Bay Boulevard, businesses were decimated and left without power for more than two weeks. Schools and apartment buildings turned into relief centers, where clothes and food were given out.

“We had strangers coming into buildings and showering and using laundry services,” Joann Ariola, president of the Howard Beach-Lindenwood Civic Association said in a recent interview. Those who had cars — many were destroyed during the storm — were frustrated by a fuel shortage that caused many to wait on line for hours at gas stations. The A train was out of commission for seven months due to water damaging the tracks and electrical equipment. Commuters got to and from Manhattan via a ferry that was canceled last October due to low ridership but is coming back permanently in 2017. In Breezy Point, rising seawater caused wires in one house to spark a fire, which grew to a six-alarm blaze that spread and caused about 130 houses to burn to the ground. In 2013, the recovery initiative Build it Back was started to reconstruct houses or reimburse people for work they did by themselves. The program lagged during its first year. Mayor de Blasio announced last month it will be done by Q 2016’s end.

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continued from page 15 neighborhood at the time, however, but the suburban feel of the Gardens set a precedent for the development of eastern Queens, such as Douglaston and Bayside, Hirschon said. In researching his book, he found that newspapers of the time as far away as Georgia and Texas reported on the Gardens, which indicates an influence on the exurbs of other cities, as well. Beyond real estate, the impact of the establishment of the Gardens affects the cultural life of Queens, as well. The existence of the Gardens drew the

Page 31 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 12, 2015

The Gardens

West Side Tennis Club, which voted in 1912 to move from the West Side of Manhattan to Forest Hills. The club is not only an active private athletic facility but also the ancestral home of the US Open, first hosting the National Championship of the United States Tennis Association in 1915, Hirschon said. “We probably wouldn’t have the US Open in Queens today if it weren’t for the development of Forest Hills Gardens,” Hirschon said. Drake Michell, who writes the Edge of the City Forest Hills blog, noted that without the Gardens attracting the West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills also wouldn’t now be the summer home of the New York Pops and Q stadium concerts.

The World’s Fairs in Queens continued from page 20 became the Queens Museum, which houses the Panorama of the City of New York, an attraction from the 1964 fair. The Queens Theatre was created from part of the ’64 New York State Pavilion, while the Queens Botanical Garden is a remnant from the ’39 event, though moved across College Point Boulevard. Terrace on the Park, a ’64-65 helicopter pad among other things, is now a catering facility, while the New York Hall of Science has expanded since the ’64-65 fair closed. The Queens Zoo was an outgrowth of that fair, something that Moses had planned. The dome of the Churchill Pavilion became the zoo’s aviary. One relic, the New York State Pavilion from 1964, had been neglected in the past and left to decay, but the borough president has promised to save it. A recent paint job shows a bit of its past glory. Future uses for it are under study. The most striking legacy from ’64, however, is the Unisphere, still welcoming visitors from all over the world. It stands in the middle of the park in the same location as the Trylon and Perisphere, symbols from the 1939 fair. Also located in Flushing Meadows are Citi Field, home of the Mets, and the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the US Open is held every year. Moses always planned for a baseball sta-

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITES A view of the 1939-40 World’s Fair. PHOTO COURTESY QUEENS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

dium there and it opened in time for the 1964 fair. W hether he would have approved of the tennis facility on parkland will never be known. It opened in 1978, was named for King in 2006 and is now undergoing a major renovation. A tasty reminder of the fair was the Belgian waff le, popularized at the ‘64 extravaganza, which remains a vivid memory for those who attended. It seems like everyone who attended the fair tried the $1 treat and fell in love with the waffle topped with strawberries and whipped cream. It’s a sweet reminder of all that was gained from two international expoQ sitions that called Queens home.

continued from page 28 “She did it all on the national level when no other woman had,” Katz said. “She was an amazing woman who paved the way.” Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas (D-Astoria), an Astoria native, also noted Ferraro’s commitment to environmental issues, and pursuing full equality for women. “As a woman from Queens and a legislator, I am constantly reminded of Geraldine Ferraro’s legacy and accomplishments,” Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas (D-Astoria) said in an emailed statement. “… For those of us who had the honor to know her,

Geraldine will always serve as an example to follow and a stateswoman to emulate.” In October 2012, the city renamed the intersection of Austin Street and Ascan Avenue in Forest Hills for Ferraro. “Geraldine Ferraro Way” is right by Our Lady Queens of Martyrs, where she and her family were longtime congregants. At the street renaming ceremony, thenBorough President Helen Marshall was one of many who remembered Ferraro as a key female trailblazer. “Before Gerry, a woman could only be a district leader in Queens,” Marshall said. Q

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