Queens Chronicle 44th Anniversary Edition

Queens Historical Society

Friends of Maple Grove

Newtown Historical Society

Community theater troupes

Volunteer fire departments

Richmond Hill Historical Society

Juniper Park Civic Association

Bobbi and the Strays

Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays

Jackson Heights Beautification Group

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

Photos

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

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So when Wolfson, an 18-yearold with a love of Queens history — particularly that of Flushing — decided to start the Queens Historical Society in 1968, he had quite the collection to work with. Antos said that the few remaining members of the Flushing Historical Society ultimately donated the group’s artifacts and materials. And that was no small collection — Antos said it included hundreds of items.

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

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

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

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

instrumental, along with other members whose homes were there.”

And though the Murray Hill Shopping Center was ultimately built, the committee managed to rescue the house from meeting an untimely end:

“The committee saved the house and bought it from the city for $1,” Antos said.

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

into three pieces and driven down Northern Boulevard, then south to its current site on 37th Avenue.

DeMartino remembers watching that process with her young children.

“They were fascinated — my son saw ambulances, fire trucks, police cars,” she said. “The street was closed, and you saw this house being moved down the block.”

She added that one committee member was in construction, and that he had orchestrated the house’s division. The three pieces were ultimately put back together at its new spot in Weeping Beech Park.

number of environmental projects at Queens College and Flushing Meadows Corona Park, even founding the Flushing Meadows Park Action Committee, which called for the cleanup of Flushing River and Flushing Bay.

AND HOME

By his 21st birthday in 1971, Wolfson had accomplished quite a bit. For his birthday, he traveled to Montana to learn how to fly a Cessena. He crashed into a hill, and died as a result of his injuries, according to Antos. Despite Wolfson’s life being cut short, the Queens Historical Society lived on.

That land, owned by the Parks Department, previously had a house on it, which had since been destroyed, DeMartino said. The department allowed the committee to put the house there, and it has stayed put ever since.

The preservation of the Kingsland Homestead, Wolfson’s interest in founding a historical society and the donation of the Flushing collection together made for the perfect storm, Antos told the Chronicle.

From there, the Historical Society was able to grow. Though not much is known about Wolfson, Antos said he also contributed to a

“They became a 501(c)(3), they start getting funding, building a membership — you had people who were committed to this thing,” Antos said. “I think the fact that there was now a physical location, that was a good motivation to say, ‘No, we’ve got to keep this thing going.’”

That work seems to have paid off; the Queens Historical Society celebrated its 54th anniversary this year, and is housed in the Kingsland Homestead to this day.

For more information on the Queens Historical Society and its programming, go online to queenshistoricalsociety.org.

Before the newly founded Queens Historical Society found its permanent home in Kingsland Homestead on 37th Avenue, the house was moved from Northern Boulevard and 155th Street in 1968. QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY ARCHIVES

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

Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery foster community Alive with memory and culture

by Michael Gannon Senior News Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We have 117,000 stories here,” he said. “Over the years I came to understand that we have become a historical society. The people, the volunteers are all lovers of history. We are at the heart of Queens. What Green-Wood Cemetery is to Brooklyn, I want Maple Grove to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That led to a costume night for parents, which led directly to “Spirits Alive,” a regular presentation during which volunteers dress as historic figures in the cemetery. Many in the beginning were Ballenas’ students — they dressed in period costumes.

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

“She was the wife of a Civil War surgeon who served at a hospital in Washington, DC,” Day said. “Both came from upstate New York, and when the Civil War was declared he signed up with the Union Army. Back then the wives went with the husbands, especially in a prestigious position like that.”

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

President Abraham Lincoln also would visit with the men.

Dennler and her husband eventually moved to Long Island City. She headed many clubs and associ-

ations and gave many talks, with her stories chronicled in local newspapers.

“This is how we know her stories,” Day said. “They were supposed to be at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot. But they gave up their tickets because they had visitors and wanted to spend time with them.”

She died in 1935.

Ballenas said the Friends make, rent and buy costumes that the reeneactors wear.

One very popular community activity that returned on Halloween Weekend was “Trunk or Treat,” a safe, family-friendly event that also functioned as a collection for the River Fund food pantry in Richmond Hill.

Another historic figure buried at Maple Grove, Ballenas said, is Millie Tunnell, who was born a slave on a plantation near that of George Washington, whom she saw on occasion.

and granite stone on her grave.”

He said Maple Grove is as diverse a cemetery as can exist.

“We are nonsecterian, with all faiths and all religions,” Ballenas said. “Walk around and you’ll find a cross and a Star of David. We have Guyanese tombstones, Chinese tombstones. It’s so fascinating.”

And his own curiosity still allows Ballenas, the history teacher, to learn.

While he had walked the cemetery countless times, he recently came across the headstone at the grave of one Susan Monroe Stowe.

Ballenas wondered if the grave from the early 1900s might have to do with Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

GRAVE CONCERNS

“She died at age 111, and every year after her 100th birthday reporters would visit to find out about her. That’s how we know her story.”

But Tunnell did not have a headstone until recently.

“One-hundred twenty-five years after her death, we placed a bronze

Sure enough, it was the famed author’s daughter-in-law, who lived in the Kew Gardens-Forest Hills area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her husband, who also originally had a burial plot there, remarried and moved out west.

“What I love about this place is that you can be walking along and see a name on a grave and something just touches you, and you say, ‘I want to find out who this person is.’”

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

PHOTOS BY CARL BALLENAS

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

Small group has some big victories

Newtown Historical Soc. perseveres

by Michael Gannon Senior News Editor

Christina Wilkinson is a veteran observer of history and civic engagement in Queens. But the president of the Newtown Historical Society was surprised recently when considering the organization’s own history.

“I’m actually kind of shocked we’ve already been around for 15 years,” she told the Chronicle.

The group has no building, few artifacts and not even an executive director. But it still can pack a punch, and has on more than one occasion.

“It was co-founded by me and a few others back in 2007,” Wilkinson recalled. “We were in the middle of trying to save St. Savior’s Church at the time and it sort of dawned on us that we really didn’t have an organization that was preservation-focused for Maspeth, Middle Village all the towns that were part of Newtown So we wanted to bring the issues to the forefront. Obviously we started with St. Savior’s.”

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

“The city had plans to basically destroy all the habitats in the basins of the reservoir for active recreation,” Wilkinson said. “And we fought this. In a nutshell we did a lot of advocacy work. We got in touch with a wetlands delineator, which sounds like kind of a strange title, but this person was actually an expert in what constitutes wetlands.

HISTORY AND MORE

Built in 1847, the Maspeth church was targeted for the wrecking ball. It now sits in storage trailers as civic and preservation groups seek funding and a site to rebuild it.

“We moved on to other projects,” Wilkinson said. “The big one was the Ridgewood Reservoir in Highland Park. That was probably our biggest victory so far.”

The reservoir was constructed in 1858 in what is now High-

“He went down into the basins and marked out which areas had wetlands. He also described what type ... because all three basins have different types of wetlands that have different types of plant life and support different types of wildlife. It would have been a shame to lose that. Wetlands are very important for number of reasons. But to have that biodiversity right here in the area ... you can’t just walk down the street to a pond. It’s a unique spot, and we knew it needed to be preserved. Sort of upgraded, but mostly intact.”

Wilkinson said the site, and its eventual reuse, proved to have a little something for everyone.

“If you’re interested in history, it’s an amazing story of how it was built. If you’re interested in nature, then that’s the place to go and see it. And it also does provide some active recreation. There’s jogging and some bike paths around it. No mat-

ter what type of activity you’re interested in, you can go there.”

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

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

The small group packed a big punch when fighting to preserve St. Saviour’s Church in Maspeth. PHOTO COURTESY NHS

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

by Mark Lord Chronicle Contributor

According to the American Association of Community Theatre, a nonprofit corporation that serves as the voice of the amateur boards in this country, “Community theater occupies a peculiarly important position in the American theater picture.”

It’s an idea that reflects the thoughts of many of those individuals whose voices have been heard on our local stages, as well as those who have found themselves seated on the aisles of our neighborhood’s theaters.

AACT further indicates that community theater “engages more people in theatrical activity, albeit part-time, than all the rest of the American theater put together.”

Dr. Twink Lynch, who wrote a book on the subject entitled “Boards in the Spotlight,” suggests that “the beginnings of community theater in the United States are not well recorded.”

But she points out that amateur theatricals existed even during the Colonial and Revolutionary War times.

One such group, the Footlight Club, was founded in 1877 in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and has been declared by AACT to be the oldest continuously producing community theater in the U.S.

Dating back a few decades less but still a long time, and still going strong, is this borough’s own Douglaston Community Theatre, a troupe that traces its roots to the 1920s.

DCT’s history has been fairly well documented over the years. According to a 1990 write-up in a local newspaper, a group called the Church and Drama Association was begun under the auspices of Zion Episcopal Church. When the church burned to the ground on Christmas Eve 1924, the troupers began to hold their meetings at the Douglaston Club, assuming the name The Douglaston Players.

In 1950, the principal of PS 98 approached the group about a possible fundraising event, and the play “Life with Father” was put on in

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

When the Board of Education drastically raised its rates for use of the auditorium, in the mid-1960s, DCT moved to its permanent home at the rebuilt Zion Church.

In addition to many loyal fans, who return time and again to see productions, the group has an impressive number of long-time members.

One of them, Michael Wolf, a mainstay in Queens community theater who is currently one of DCT’s three co-presidents, says that groups such as this are not only “a great asset” to the community, but “an integral part” of it. And for the actors, “It means everything,” he said. “We love to do this. We have to love it. There’s little or no remuneration.”

He pointed out in a recent telephone interview that around the time DCT was founded, Calvin Coolidge was president of the United States and Jack Dempsey was heavyweight boxing champion of the world. “These are completely different times,” Wolf said, suggesting that DCT has evolved considerably since its inception.

“We used to do a musical every spring,” said Barbara Mavro, a member of the group since 1979 and another one of its current copresidents. But in recent years, that has become “cost prohibitive,” she said.

Still a list of some of its recent productions is diverse and impressive: Neil Simon’s comedy classic “The Sunshine Boys,” the mystery thriller “Deathtrap,” the comic play “Blithe Spirit” and Pulitzer Prize winner “Driving Miss Daisy,” among many others. Already in the planning stages is “Prescription: Murder,” the play that inspired the television series “Columbo,” scheduled for the spring.

Equally varied are the productions offered by another longstanding local theater group, The Gingerbread Players of St. Luke’s Church in Forest Hills, whose latest undertaking, Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” runs Nov. 12 to 20.

LOCAL DRAMA

Back in 1971, the church’s organist and choir director, Harriet Morin, noted that a member of the congregation, Chip Stokes, was understudying the title role in the New York City Opera production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” and suggested the church mount a production of their own with the young performer as well as other interested parishioners. Thus, a new theater group was born.

Louise Guinther, whose father was in the chorus of that production of “Amahl,” was recruited to hand out programs for the show, being too young to appear on stage. She’s been involved with the group ever since.

“Community theater is a real social activity,” she said, an opportunity for those involved “to find out about each other, to check out each other’s talents in a low-pressure environment.”

The group sets itself apart by performing not only Shakespeare but the works of other playwrights who are not frequently represented on community theater stages. Among its past offerings are the Bard’s “Macbeth” and “The Taming of the Shrew,” Moliere’s comedy “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” and musicals including “Babes in Toyland” and “The Boy Friend.”

Community theater is “a chance for kids and grownups to interact,” Guinther said. “The kids often show the grownups up.”

Forest Hills resident Michele Gerrig Newmark, a theater devotee who sees as many shows as she can, both on Broadway and local-

ly, values community theater.

She recently recalled one of her own earliest theatrical experiences, one which found her sharing a community theater stage with her mother.

“The community really came together,” she remembered. “Theater brings a sense of community to a community. It brings awareness that there’s more than television and movies. It radiates outward.”

She also appreciates that such theaters are “very easy to get to, usually quite inexpensive. And the venues are so small that you feel like a part of the action.”

Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic shut down many theater companies, both professional and nonprofessional, some temporarily, some permanently. While several community theaters in the borough were forced to bring down their final curtains, others have managed to re-emerge, welcoming audiences back for much longed-for live performances.

According to Encyclopedia.com, in 1917, there were approximately 50 community theaters across the country. By 1925, that number swelled to almost 2,000. Today, per AACT, there are about 6,000.

About a dozen are right here in the borough. In addition to DCT and Gingerbread, the groups back in action following a two-year shutdown include Royal Star Theatre in Jamaica Estates, St. Gregory’s Theatre Group in Bellerose, Maggie’s Little Theater in Middle Village, and a relatively new entry to the scene, City Gate Productions, which performs at various venues around the borough.

So, the survival of community theater seems assured, thanks to the dedication of the performers and production teams, as well as the audiences who welcome their contributions to the community.

William Gross and Dolly Guinther perform in the Gingerbread Players’ production of “Hansel and Gretel” in 1974.

PHOTO COURTESY LOUISE GUINTHER

At left, Stephen Banci, Eliza Smith, Fred Guinther and Louise Guinther in the Gingerbread Players’ original “Uncle King Arthur,” 1976. At right, performers in Douglaston Community Theatre’s 1979 production of “Guys and Dolls.”

PHOTOS COURTESY LOUISE GUINTHER, LEFT, AND DCT

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

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

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

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

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

It was May 2, 2007.

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

“I got to see how everything operated and it just grabbed me and it felt right. Like the people in the firehouse, the family feel of it, the community, it just felt right. And I kind of never left,” he said.

Now, he is the chief of the department.

In Broad Channel, Rich Bogart is the chief of the volunteer fire department and he, too, had been turned on to service by a friend at 14 or 15 years old.

“I went and checked it out ... And, 30 years later, here I am,” said Bogart.

Bogart became chief of the department earlier this year and said getting volunteers in the door and keeping them is a focus.

The Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department has a junior department for kids ages 12 to 17 and it is part of the Boy Scouts Explorer program.

“I would say 10 of the last chiefs have come from juniors,” said Bogart. “They started out as kids, learning how to dispatch, learning how the fire department works and going through training and then working their way up through the ranks and sticking with it.”

hard times, economically. So of course time is money and your time is valued but sometimes you have to work at things.”

When people are trained as EMTs, he said, they are also being given a potential career. “You can go to the FDNY with that card. You can go and join a private company, work for Jamaica Hospital and other hospitals as an EMT,” Spinelli said.

Bogart tells young people the same, noting that many of his members are police officers, FDNY members or sanitation workers.

QUEENS VOLLIES

In Lindenwood, Chris DeLuca, chief of the Lindenwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps, said the problem is usually money or people. Right now, he thinks it is the people part.

He, too, knows that times are hard for folks and volunteering is not at the forefront as they work several jobs to make ends meet.

organized in 1928 by community members following a deadly house fire, said Spinelli. The closest responding unit was 15 minutes away.

“When the tide comes up or we’re getting a really bad storm and flooding occurs, a lot of the time the city units have issues in their responses,” he said. “They can’t go through the tide waters ... It damages vehicles, shorts out electrical systems. But if we’re already at the firehouse in Hamilton Beach, we don’t have to go through 165th Avenue and 102nd Street where the water at times can be a foot high, even without any sort of storm surge.”

The WHBVFD operates on a budget of $80,000 to $100,000 and answers 300 to 500 fire calls and 250 to 500 EMS calls a year. During the Sept. 11 attacks, its two ambulances responded to the scene and the engine and members covered an FDNY house.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We tend to focus a little more on potential water rescue calls and potential car accidents. We generally do get some severe car accidents, so we try to focus on that.”

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

That’s important amidst a national shortage for volunteers, he said.

Bogart is also the vice president of the NYC Volunteer Fireman’s Association, which covers the eight remaining volunteer departments in the city, five of which are in Queens: Broad Channel, WestHamilton Beach, Point Breeze, Rockaway Point and Roxbury.

He said there has been a dramatic decline in volunteer fire service in the last 10 years, estimating that there were previously 200,000 volunteer firefighters in New York State and that the number has dropped to around 80,000.

Spinelli said local recruitment and retention, especially postpandemic, is a focus.

“It really does pain me to say it, but volunteering is such a dying breed,” he said. “It takes special people to do it.”

He continued, “There are benefits to it but the response that I get sometimes is, ‘Yeah, but I’m not getting paid to do it.’ I get it. We’re in

“Recruiting is one thing, retaining is another,” he said. “Once they get a paying job, little by little, they disappear.”

Money is harder to come by too, especially with a budget of $90,000 to $100,000 a year, much of which goes toward insurance.

“Utilities have all gone up. Diesel fuel for the ambulances is off the hook right now,” DeLuca said.

“Right now we’re probably running about three to four nights a week. It’s been probably about 15, 20 years since we were here seven days, to be quite honest.”

Broad Channel and West Hamilton Beach are the only volunteer Queens firehouses in which volunteers are not required to be from the neighborhood. The West Hamilton Beach department has members from Brooklyn and even Staten Island.

The departments, especially in flood-prone areas of Queens, serve a special purpose.

The West Hamilton Beach firehouse was

The BCVFD was founded in 1905 as a bucket brigade, when the only way to get to and from the island was by ferry. The goal was to help minimize property loss and lower insurance premiums as there was no form of fire protection on the island. In 1907, the brigade was formally organized into the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Association under its first chief, Edward Schlueter.

The current firehouse at 15 Noel Road was opened 1908. On June 14th, 1917, Chief Christian Hoobs died of a heart attack while responding to a fire. It was the only line-ofduty death in the department’s history, according to its website. In 1942, the department reorganized and became a Civil Defense Unit under a new name, the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department Emergency Auxiliary Corps. It was the first in the state to operate on a 24-hour basis out of its own firehouse.

At its inception, all the men in town were expected to join, said Bogart. “You were protecting your own home and your neighbors’ homes, you know, so everyone turned out.” At the height of the department, there were 150 to

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

The Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1905. It still operates out of its original site on Noel Road but is fighting for a new location. PHOTO COURTESY ED WILMARTH / FILE

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

Preserving Richmond Hill’s legacy

Group aids homeowners and much more

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

First-time homebuyers Eli and Hillary Dvorkin were looking to move from their Ridgewood apartment to a house, happening upon a small country cottage on the outskirts of Forest Park in North Richmond Hill, perfect to walk their newborn through the pandemic.

They could feel that the home had been “well-loved,” said Eli, thoughtfully designed with large windows that bathed it with light. He wanted to learn more about the space and started with city Department of Building records.

He found the original owners, Otto and Emma Siedentopf, built the home in 1925 after leaving Ridgewood with their 1-year-old.

torical Society. President Helen Day learned that Otto Siedentopf, a German immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1897 at 5 years old, was a local hero, having joined the police force in 1917 as a mounted officer and being mentioned in a newspaper for saving a traveler who was thrown from his horse and dragged by it.

The society was able to advise the Dvorkins on practical matters, too, as they applied for a tax incentive that would help them preserve the historical integrity of the home.

HISTORIC HELPERS

“It was a little eerie, but it was like a century later and the story was repeating itself — a family growing for the first time, trying to find a little more breathing room in the big city and something that was also still relatively affordable,” Dvorkin said.

Then, he turned to the Richmond Hill His-

“As we fell in love with the neighborhood and the home, we realized there are folks, our neighbors, who feel similarly and are there for moral support and, in some cases, also practical support,” said Dvorkin.

That is just some of the work that the historical society, founded in 1997, does. Past president and founding member Ivan Mrakovcic, who passed away in 2020, was an architect, historian and preservationist who would help homeowners with restorations.

He fought upzoning the area, too, to preserve the historic homes, many of which were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, some in the

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWARDS:

• Five-Star Nursing & Rehabilitation Facility awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

• Administrator member of American College of Health Administrators

• Administrator recipient of CMS Outstanding Achievement award for Reducing Hospitalizations

• Administrator is 2016 Recipient of Lily Leadership Award

Sapphire Center

Rehabilitation & Nursing of Central Queens

The home that Ivan Mrakovic lived in.

PHOTO COURTESY RICHMOND HILL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Juniper Civic is a world a-park

From graffiti cleanups to fighting City

by Michael Gannon Senior News Editor

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

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

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

The group as it exists today was founded in 1938 as Queens prepared for the World’s Fair. Councilman Bob Holden (D-Maspeth) served as president of the JCPA, one of the largest civic associations in the state, for nearly 25 years before being elected to the Council in 2017.

He said the area had been a mix of farmland and developing communities in the early 20th century.

“My mother grew up around the corner from where I live now. My grandfather built three homes, each multifamily, so everybody grew up together. They told me there were a lot of farms everywhere, and my grandfather had a flower farm. There were a lot of cemeteries, so my family had a florist business ... My grandfather bought in this area because he saw the potential. The park came first, and PS 49 was there before the park,” Holden said. “You had a housing explosion in the ’30s.”

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

He also said a lot more.

“So after the meeting the leadership came up to me and said ‘We need you.’”

And a civic star was born.

“I served 25 years as vice president and president,” he said. “I’d always been involved in the neighborhood with things like Little League and neighborhood cleanups. But this time I was joining a bigger organization.”

ACTIVE CITIZENRY

Developers came up with their own names for the new tracts of housing, such as Juniper Park, which Holden said did not stick; and Liberty Park in Glendale, which did.

The Juniper Park Homes Civic Association merged with the Eliot Avenue Civic Association in 1938.

Holden said he had known about the civic association, and that his wife’s aunt, Lorraine Sciulli, was a very active member.

He did not become active himself until back in the mid-1980s, when the state began widening the Long Island Expressway.

“They kept closing the LIE in the wee hours,” he said. “Trucks would spin out into our neighborhood. I couldn’t sleep at night because I had 18-wheelers coming down these back streets and they couldn’t get out. The streets were so narrow. So you’d hear all this commotion at 2 in the morning and I’d have to go out and direct traffic.

“My wife’s aunt said, ‘You should go to the Juniper Park Civic and tell them what’s going on.’ So I went to the meeting and I had

Hall, the JPCA’s

meetings or at City Hall.

ready

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

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

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

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

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

“What makes a native?” he asked. “Nunziato’s, a florist, started in 1911 in Woodside. My family was in the florist and mausoleum business. My grandfather started a stonecutting business in Maspeth in about 1915 to 1920.” His grandparents had 11 children, all of whom went on to leadership positions in the civic and business communities.

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

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

A serendipitous benefit came to the Juniper Berry, the civic’s quarterly publication, which began in 1940. Holden, a graphic design professor for four decades, was able to make the good even better.

“Since I was a graphic designer, I took it over when I became president,” he said. “ I thought ‘Boy this is a great way to communicate. I could build the civic, build up the name recognition and build up the membership by doing this magazine.’”

Usually the JPCA president did not handle the Juniper Berry hands-on. But with Lorraine Sciulli editing as well as writing many articles, he said the periodical at its peak had a print run of about 10,000, though it is down to about 5,000 now.

Nunziato said he too had come to the civic in a roundabout way. He had known Holden through Community Board 5 and other civic activities.

The JPCA president said the group now has a good roster of longtime volunteers and what he said is a small group of young newcomers that he hopes keeps right on growing.

He said it is all about building and caring for the community. And he said being a native or newcomer to the region can be a question of just whom one might ask.

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

His own florist business has been in Maspeth since 1986.

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

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

“They said it was a done deal, that it was going to be a Home Depot; that’s it, and there was no way it was going to be a park for the community,” he said. “Keyspan owned it ... And there was some big money and big politicians behind it, saying it was going to go through.”

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

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

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

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

Juniper Valley Park under construction in August of 1937. It would quickly become a jewel of central Queens. PHOTOS COURTESY JPCA

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

by Sean Okula Associate Editor

Bobbi Giordano started sheltering animals when she was a preteen. Some years — she declined to share her age on the record — and thousands of cats and dogs saved later, she’s left with one feeling.

“It’s not enough,” she said. “It’s just not enough.

“I just wish I could do more. I wish I had more years ahead of me.”

Bobbi and the Strays, with locations in Freeport, LI, and Glendale, is a cats-and-dogs adoption center and shelter that has been in operation as a not-for-profit since 1998, though rescuing animals is Giordano’s selfproclaimed life’s work and has been at least something of a side pursuit since her preteen days.

She can’t remember the exact age she started rescuing animals, but Giordano says she was between 10 and 12 years old. She found a litter of kittens that someone had abandoned in a lot and took them back to her childhood home to care for them. Her mother had no qualms.

“It was no problem,” she said. “I got a job when I was very young, and all of the money went toward boarding them.”

Generally no more than four at a time, the animals had free rein over the household until Giordano managed to find them homes. As an adult, she ran a clothing store on Staten Island, never turning her back on the animals in need.

ANIMAL LOVERS

The organization has rescued 1,690 cats and 2,371 dogs since June 2009 and January 2009, respectively, though that’s only as far back as their records go. The real numbers, Giordano says, exceed those figures by thousands.

“Every time I made money, I’d go pay the vets or board the dogs at people’s homes,” she said.

She sold the clothing store and took up sheltering animals fulltime in 1998, gaining nonprofit status with the help of then-state Assemblymember Audrey Pheffer. In 2007, she moved to the space in Glendale, within The Shops at Atlas Park mall. For a period of time, the organization occupied the space without hav-

ing to pay rent.

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Giordano, center with scissors, cuts the ribbon on her shelter location at The Shops at Atlas Park in January 2007.

PHOTO BY EVE GAGNON

A family history key to gay rights

Manford’s public defense of her son led to PFLAG

by Mark Lord Chronicle Contributor

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

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

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

That simple public admission, no small act at the time, sparked a tremendous response from readers and went a long way in drawing attention to the movement that her son had been supporting.

Two months later, mother and son participated in the New York Pride March, forerunner of the annual Gay Pride Parade. Jeanne Manford carried a hand-lettered sign that read, “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support of Our Children.” So significant did that sign become that it is preserved in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library.

She was asked by many in attendance at the march to speak to other parents, leading to the formation of a parental organization that became known, fittingly, as Parents of Gays, which held its first formal meeting on March 11, 1973 in Greenwich Village, with approximately 20 individuals in attendance. That led to the founding of PFLAG (an acronym for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) later that year, its mission “to create a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.”

According to PFLAG.org, “The power of PFLAG was born from the unified front of the family. It is the unified front of LGBTQ+ people, parents, families and non-family allies that continues to fuel PFLAG 50 years later.”

The organization will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023.

The national organization, PFLAG National, provides support to a network of local chapters across the country, now numbering around 400, including one in Queens, which meets every third Sunday every month at 2 p.m. at The Reform Temple of Forest Hills (71-11 112 St.) For further information on the Queens chapter, visit pflag-queens.org or call (718) 858-9678.

It is estimated that PFLAG currently has

over 200,000 members in all 50 states.

For Jeanne Manford’s efforts in co-founding the organization, then-President Barack Obama awarded her, posthumously, in 2013, the Presidential Citizens Medal.

“She ... took to the streets with a simple message: No matter who her son was, no matter who he loved, she loved him,” Obama said.

It was but one of many honors bestowed upon the Manford family.

In June 1991, Jeanne Manford, who died in 2013 at the age of 92, served as grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride March. Two years later, she served in the same capacity for the first Gay Pride Parade in Queens.

On April 26, 2014, members of the family were forever memorialized as part of the borough’s history when 171st Street between 33rd and 35th avenues in Flushing was conamed “Jeanne, Jules, Morty Manford PFLAG Way,” next to the school where Jeanne taught.

And on May 20, 2017, the Jackson Heights Post Office, located at 78-02 37 Ave., was renamed the Jeanne and Jules Manford Post Office Building.

“All they did was to love their child and stand up for what they knew to be rightful,” said the Manfords’ daughter, Suzanne Swan, at the ceremony, as reported in the Queens Chronicle.

“They fought for [Morty’s] right to be who he was ... in a time when people didn’t understand,” she said. “They took it upon themselves to educate people. My parents loved New York

and they would be so proud to have their names carved on this important part of the city.”

Swan, in turn, is proud of her parents and brother. Speaking by telephone recently from her home in California, she suggested that her mother “didn’t anticipate” the importance of her actions. “But when she realized she could have an effect, she worked even harder,” she said.

The full impact of her mother’s influence on the gay movement really hit home for Swan one year when she was in Europe during Pride Month. “They don’t have PFLAG there,” she said, but “they were able to march because my parents marched.” The realization, she said, left her in tears.

As for Morty, who would become assistant New York State attorney general and who died in 1992 of AIDS at the age of 41, Swan said, “He would be proud” of the strides made in the LGBTQ+ community. “He would have pushed it a lot further. His teachers told my mother he should be a senator.”

She remembered her brother as being “popular, strong-minded. He posted notices wherever gay people met. He would have had laws passed for federal rights. We lost a lot when we lost Morty.”

Perhaps surprisingly, according to Swan, her brother didn’t voluntarily come out to his parents. “Somebody told on him,” she said. “He couldn’t believe his parents would love him. Morty had no way of knowing. It’s still not easily accepted.”

She recalled that her father did, in fact, have a hard time accepting his son as gay, blaming himself for having done something wrong in raising him.

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

Jules, a dentist, died in 1982 at the age of 63. Someone who knew the Manfords quite well is former City Councilman Daniel Dromm, who served from 2010 to 2021. Like Jeanne Manford, he had been a public school teacher, promoting teaching acceptance of LGBTQ individuals through the Rainbow Curriculum.

Dromm also founded the Queens LGBTQ Pride Parade in 1993.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

behind them is Dr. Benjamin Spock, the renowned pediatrician and author, in white shirt and tie. The sign Manford bears is preserved at the New York Public Library. PHOTO COURTESY NYC COUNCIL / FILE

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

PHOTO COURTESY DANNY DROMM

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

by Sean Okula Associate Editor

More than three decades in, the Jackson Heights Beautification Group’s priorities may have changed over the years, but that’s only because of the progress it has made.

Founded in 1988, the group lists a number of community accomplishments on its website, including the opening of schools, launch of programs and development of neighborhood spaces. Board President Leslie Ellman says the accomplishments of her predecessors have made it such that the organization can now focus on upkeep, rather than revival.

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

Time Warner Cable had placed what residents came to call “green monsters” on Jackson Heights streets. The devices were described by Westley as “receiving and outgoing stations,” and residents thought them an eyesore.

ADVOCACY GROUPS

“Now the issues are more like, rather than always focusing on cleaning something up, it’s about maintaining it or making it better, or advocating with city agencies and electeds for resources,” she said. “It’s kind of changed from picking something up in a bad place to keeping it nice.”

To get to that point, former President Ed Westley had to win certain battles. He highlighted discussions with the Time Warner

The JHBG took up the cause of moving them underground, like the rest of the utilities in the area. After then-Councilman John Sabini expressed little interest in joining in the fight, the organization fought the battle on its own, getting it to the point where thenBorough President Claire Shulman helped adjudicate a resolution: The devices would be moved underground in the neighborhood’s historic district only.

“That was a compromise, and we accepted that compromise,” Westley said.

Some years later, the Garden School, a private institution located on 79th Street, was looking to sell some of its land to a developer hoping to build an apartment complex.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer Sundays in the Park is one JHBG initiative.

FILE PHOTO BY CESAR BUSTAMENTE

Saviours of classic architecture

Bayside Historical Society dates to 1964

by Peter Kropf Chronicle Contributor

1964 gave Queens The Beatles at Kennedy Airport, the Mets at Shea Stadium and the World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Before it all, in January of that year, the Bayside Historical Society was founded by a neighborhood icon who wore many hats.

Historian. Teacher. Activist. Preservationist. Joseph H. Brown was a busy man. However, his main focus was protecting and beautifying his beloved Bayside, as well as highlighting its rich history. He had helped form several committees, such as the Bayside Beautification Committee, to achieve this. Like streams into a river, the committees led to the formation of the Bayside Historical Society. Brown was its first president.

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

ART AND ARCHIVES

In 1967 the Lawrence Cemetery was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Alley Pond Environmental Center was established in 1972. And, also in the early 1970s, the Castle at Fort Totten (aka the Fort Totten Officers’ Club) was declared a city landmark. The Castle was listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1986, and by 1999 the entire Fort Totten Historical District was recognized by the city as a landmark. Brown, who died in 1974, saw much of his work come to fruition. Fittingly, the Castle became the Bayside Historical Society’s headquarters in 1984 and has been its home ever since.

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

At first, the organization was a small group of residents. Sometimes it held meetings at members’ houses. This early version of the Bayside Historical Society fought primarily for the preservation and restoration of three major sites in the area: the Lawrence Cemetery, Alley

In more recent decades, the nonprofit organization has increasingly advocated for the preservation of historic structures and old houses. “We were losing beautiful homes in Bayside, especially the Victorian houses,” Paul DiBenedetto, president of the Bayside Historical Society, regrettably recalls. “That’s what first got me involved.” With the help of politi-

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

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

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

PHOTO COURTESY PAUL DIBENEDETTO

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

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

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

by Peter Kropf Chronicle Contributor

Before the early 20th century, most birdwatching in America was done through a gunsight. Hunting birds was common sport and the fashion industry coveted their feathers.

By the 1920s, however, many began to drop their rifles and shotguns in favor of binoculars. Avian appreciation, fueled by a wave of conservationism, was popularized by birding icons such as Ludlow Griscom of the American Museum of Natural History. Griscom, a New York City native nicknamed the “dean of the birdwatchers,” demonstrated that birds have unique aesthetic value.

It didn’t take long for Queens to catch the birding bug; the Queens County Bird Club was formed in 1932. Initially, it was a small, exclusive group. To join, prospective members had to be recommended and approved in a process similar to applying for a job. Restrictions loosened over time, though, and interest grew. In fact, the club was ahead of the curve in the early to mid-20th century, as it had many more female members than most other birding organizations (birdwatching was a male-dominated hobby back then). By the 1960s, the group was one of the first to have a woman as president.

Inc. describes itself as a “non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable organization” and offers much more than it did in 1932. The club hosts informative lectures and presentations from top avian experts and authors, and places more emphasis on the understanding of birds’ environmental needs. For example, current birding trips are not just about birds — some time is also spent learning about other fauna and flora that the group comes across.

Birdwatchers need birds to watch. The QCBC has thrived for nearly a century because the borough is perfect for the hobby. Queens has more green space than any other borough and features habitats — forests, fields, lakes, marshes and seashores — that attract a wide variety of feathered flyers. Alley Pond Park, Cunningham Park, Kissena Park, Forest Park, Fort Tilden, Jacob Riis Park and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge overall are avian havens.

NATURE LOVERS

The club’s proximity to such hotbeds, along with the tenacious work ethic of its well-informed members, has helped it make significant contributions to birding and ornithology.

To date, the QCBC has identified and documented an impressive 371 species of birds. Club President Ian Resnick has seen 180 different species, and others in Queens have observed close to 300.

also taken part in The Big Sit!, an annual international one-day birding event hosted by Bird Watcher’s Digest. It is fundamentally a birding marathon, in which birdwatchers try to identify as many species as they can while limited to a space 17 feet in diameter. The QCBC’s best year at the event was 2018, when it documented 91 species.

For 90 years, the QCBC has had a set of bylaws, held formal monthly meetings and gone on countless birding trips in the borough and beyond. During much of the 20th century, the group met at the Queens Botanical Garden’s Visitors and Administration Building in Flushing, but in the late 1990s changed its meeting location to the Alley Pond Environmental Center in Douglaston and, for now, Oakland Gardens.

Today, Queens County Bird Club

Since 1933, the group has participated in the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, the country’s longest-running community science bird project — essentially an annual national bird census taking place between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5. Birders across the country monitor zones 15 miles in diameter, with those zones divided into sectors, and report the results to the National Audubon Society. (The QCBC encourages anyone interested to join its members in this year’s count.)

For almost a decade, the club has

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

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

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

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

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

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

The group has seen its fair share of bird trends over its nine-decade run. But the most noticeable pattern is also the most alarming: Bird populations continue to drop.

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

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

Resnick says the types of birds in Queens have also changed due to global warming. He notes some birds that traditionally remained south, such as cardinals, have now moved north and are common in Queens. Other factors have also been at play. For instance, the West Nile virus

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

It’s not all bad news — Resnick adds that the club has had many rare sightings, especially in recent years. “We sometimes get birds that wander in the wrong direction,” he says. One time, vultures were found at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center campus in Queens Village. In fall of 2012, a Virginia’s warbler, normally found in the American Southwest, visited Alley Pond Park. The organization’s website reports it has spotted “pretty amazing” species such as brown pelicans, black-legged kittiwakes, dickcissels and parasitic jaegers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Queens County Bird Club and famous ornithologist David Allen Sibly, far right, on a 1993 summer birding trip in Maine. Below, more recent birding in Nickerson Beach Park a little east of Queens in Lido Beach, LI; and a blue jay — no rarity but a work of art on wings. COURTESY PHOTOS; PHOTO BY STEVE FISHER, RIGHT

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

by Sean Okula Associate Editor

On a citywide level, Greater Astorial Historical Society Executive Director Bob Singleton says interest in preserving historical landmarks and areas of historical significance piqued after the destruction of the old Penn Station in 1963.

“I think there was an awareness in New York City of the DNA of what makes this city great,” he said. “There’s a lot of discussion about New York City’s being an innovational place for new ideas and concepts, where you can see tomorrow today.”

embraced and embodied that spirit of innovation over the generations.

Among the many stories Singleton can share are tales of Colonial tide mills, the Steinway piano company and the first photocopy, a printing of the word “Astoria” made in a storage space at Broadway and 36th Street.

PAST TO

PRESENT

“For something to grow, it needs a firm foundation,” he added. “I think when Penn Station was destroyed, people said, ‘You know, we really need to take a step back and survey what our city is, where we stand, what we’re all about, why this is such a wonderful place.’”

Following what Singleton says was a trend of the time, the Greater Astoria Historical Society was founded in 1985. The area, which covers not only Astoria but also parts of Long Island City, Queens Plaza and Ravenswood, has

While Singleton prepares lectures and invites speakers to shed light on niches of the area’s history, he and the organization also like to engage the community on a more personal level. Just before the start of the pandemic, he was working with a group of English as a second language students on the construction of their own pianos made out of cardboard. They may have been presented to the president of Steinway & Sons, still based in Queens, if not for the virus.

On an individual level, it is that personal touch that brings history to life for those that pass through the historical society.

“If I show them an icebox, people might say, ‘Yeah, in my country we still have these,’ or, ‘My grandparents used to have this,’” he said. “They can see themselves within the

context of time. So they can look back, look at today and start to look at the future with more understanding.”

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

informs the people.

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

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

The Greater Astoria Historical Society has previously led walks through areas such as Steinway Village, on which participants would pass landmarks such as the Steinway Mansion, above. FILE PHOTO

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

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

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

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

Despite its relative youth, the group’s history is somewhat murky. Even the year of the Friends’ founding is unclear, remembered as anywhere from 1995 to ’99.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

way, Windsor Park, Auburndale and the Rochdale Village Adult Learning Center were among the first branches to form chapters.

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

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

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

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

Through that project, McLeod

said the QPL has been able to track the network’s evolution. And though many of the Friends’ projects are the same — backpack giveaways, plant sales, book swaps and street fairs were mainstays even in the beginning — they have been able to cast a wider net in more recent years.

“When they started, it was all about community — who you knew in the community and word of mouth,” McLeod said. “Now, the Friends have been able to reach a wider audience through things like email, and we’re exploring things like texting.”

“They still love their fliers,” he joked.

But throughout the Friends’ history, among the two most popular events are the annual Friends Conference and Library Day in Albany.

ences,” Owens said. “That provides opportunities to hear and share ideas with other Friends from across the borough — things that they’re doing, the things that work, things that are wonderful, things that you can replicate.”

Heading to Albany for Library Day every March as state lawmakers finalize the budget is another event many Friends have enjoyed over the years.

STRONG BRANCHES

During the annual conference, which takes place every fall, Friends from various chapters have the opportunity to exchange thoughts and learn from each other through a variety of workshops.

A former QPL employee herself, St. Albans chapter President Lynn Owens first became interested in joining the Friends through the conference; she has attended every year since 2016.

“I like attending Friends confer-

Van Bramer used to lead the annual pilgrimage, during which Friends of the Library would lobby area legislators to provide the QPL with more funding. He looks back on it fondly. Referring to Assemblyman Jeff Aubrey (D-Corona), he said, “I remember going to visit the assemblyman. We would have folks from East Elmhurst, from his district, who would go up there, of course, he invariably knew them.

“It was very sweet. They would be like, ‘The East Elmhurst Library is my favorite place in the world.’”

It’s a hit among Friends every year. “They find it extremely rewarding,” Owens said.

Those interested in joining a Friends of the Library chapter may visit volunteer.queenslibrary.org/ friends_membership.

The Friends of the Library help organize and fundraise for a number of library programs throughout the borough, ranging from arts and crafts activities to street fairs to plant sales. PHOTOS COURTESY QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY

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

Newtown Historical Society

Nassau itself did not exist.

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

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

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

Newtown, Wilkinson said, extended from the East River to the Flushing River. She said it, Flushing and Jamaica were more like townships, with the individual towns and neighborhoods within them retaining their distinct identities.

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

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

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

Enter the real estate industry.

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

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

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

“We aren’t really interested in having a building,” she said. “What we do is contact other organizations to do displays. We’ve had stuff out at Maspeth Federal Savings, outside by 69th Street and Grand Avenue. There’s a sign dedicated to the history of Maspeth, one of those blue and gold signs.

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

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

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

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

Bobbi offers haven for pets

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

“We don’t do a lot of fosters,” she said. “Mostly with people who volunteer here for a while. I don’t trust anybody.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The organization relies on the kindness of the community to keep running. Most of the staff is made up of volunteers, with one veterinarian offering his time on Fridays to check on animals at the Freeport location. Another man decorates his house for Halloween and asks visitors for donations, all going to Bobbi and the Strays.

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

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

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

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