By Tamara Hartman

Our Founding Father very great idea begins with someone brave, imaginative and ridiculous enough to think it. The brave mind whose imagination lead to the birth of the Queens Tribune and the ridiculous amount of hard work and love necessary to create a community newspaper belongs to Gary Ackerman.

Very simply, Ackerman loved writing, he loved the news and he loved to be in the middle of things. While at Queens College, he was the editor of the school newspaper called The Castle and he describes himself as a  “full time organization person” on campus.

After graduation, he began teaching at JHS 142 in South Jamaica. His new principal offered him the opportunity to be faculty advisor for the newspaper and – excited – he wondered how a new teacher got to be so lucky. The principal said his daughter went to Queens College and told him Ackerman was the man for the job. Ackerman proved the daughter right, and the school paper started winning awards and then took first place in the Columbia scholastic journalism awards.

Ackerman explained that while he was teaching, he conceived of the idea of a community newspaper for Queens, even as his wife Rita conceived their daughter, Lauren.

Why A Community Newspaper?

“I perceived that there was a need in the community,” Ackerman explained simply. “Growing up in Queens and being active in many civic organizations I knew that [those groups] never got publicity for the good things they do. Little space was dedicated to the local stuff” and something was needed to “fill that void,” he said.

But there were obstacles.

One of the biggest was trying to convince businesses that they should take an ad in something that didn’t exist yet, and that was soon followed by trying to get them to pay for the advertisement they had run. But Ackerman didn’t let the challenge discourage him. He knew that his newspaper, reaching 50,000 people through door-to-door delivery, was going to cost them less and get them more exposure for their dollar than the dailies with city-wide runs could do.

The Flushing Tribune was launched in February 1970 as a monthly, free distribution newspaper, and Ackerman “called everybody I knew who had kids.” He dispatched an army of Trib delivery kids and worked himself all weekend every weekend that the paper came out. “I had a knack for it. I don’t know if I did [the newspaper] the right way or the wrong way, but I did it the way I wanted to do it . . . .with community news.”

The first eight-page issue was distributed door to door in downtown Flushing. Ackerman and his two partners, Henry J. Levy and Alan Manheim, would get together in the back room of a real estate office after school hours to assemble the news for the paper. By mid-year, the paper had grown to some 32 pages and was issued on a bi-weekly basis. The paper had begun selling subscriptions to offset the growing costs of the paper and to increase circulation and ad revenues.

In time, Ackerman invested in buying typesetting machines rather than taking the paper to someone to typeset. Once that investment was made, he thought, “Why should these machines sleep at night . . . they could be doing other jobs,” and another revenue stream was born.

And from the first issue there was an overwhelming flow of press releases, volunteer writers and volunteer photographers, all proving Ackerman’s point that his paper was filling a community need. Ackerman described the long list of prominent writers who got their start at the Trib – in either the news room or on the delivery route – and said it is common for him to run into “Queens Tribune Alumni” in federal agencies and working for major dailies.

So began the pioneer in the Queens community newspaper world. “We created an industry,” Ackerman recalled, and with that industry came the frightening prospect of competition. The Bayside Times existed in those days, Ackerman said, but they were under different ownership and weren’t doing the good journalism they do today. And when other weeklies started to form, they “got me a bit nervous,” Ackerman admits. But he believes that they only proved “American free enterprise really works. They were out there telling people that weeklies work” and cutting back on the education Ackerman had to give potential advertisers.

“There are now other very good newspapers in Queens . . . all that competition is healthy for business and healthy for journalism,” Ackerman said, and looking back at his third of a century in the newspaper business, he reports that his proudest moment is still “when that first paper came out.”

The First Year In The Beginning . . .

The Tribune’s first edition headlined a local school board battle in Flushing’s School District 25. In addition, ground was broken for a new school in “the hither-to idle” Kissena Corridor Park to help alleviate the great influx of children who came with the recent arrival of large apartment buildings. The school, completed in 1976, is today the Rachel Carson Intermediate School 237.

The first news photo on page three showed then-Queens Borough President Sidney Leviss handing over his local Democratic district leadership post to a young City Councilman from Flushing, Donald R. Manes. As the Trib reported, Manes said, “We can no longer afford the luxury of nominating men who are anything but the best…As a public official I can see clearly that the Democratic Party must select candidates who are responsive to its long tradition of just political leadership.”

The Tribune’s first editorial complained about a problem affecting Flushing tenants who were being cheated out of interest owed to them on their rent deposits. Another editorial sarcastically congratulated the Transit Authority on the swiftness with which it put into effect the new 30 cent bus and subway fare, comparing that with the long delayed straphangers experience waiting for trains on the #7, E and F lines.

The paper reported on a protest by the Kissena Corridor Civic Association over plans by Booth Memorial Hospital to expand its facility. The first edition featured a movie review of the recently released film, “Easy Rider,” starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and a new face, Jack Nicholson. The review said the film was “one of the least entertaining films in local movie theaters today.”

Among the ads in the first issue was a half-page advertisement for Manes Volkswagen in Jamaica (owned by Donald Manes’ twin brother Morty) and depicting the famous Volkswagen “bug” car. A full-page ad promotes Gary Ackerman’s candidacy for the local school board election. The back page featured a full-page advertisement for Jewel Pharmacy, promoting a bottle of 100 Bufferin or Excedrin aspirins for 99 cents.

The store address is shown as 46-27 Kissena Blvd. in Flushing. Within a year, the Tribune would grow to larger quarters in its very own office – located at the very same address that had been occupied by the Jewel Pharmacy.

By the Tribune’s issue in March, the paper featured a special six-page supplement on the upcoming school board elections containing pictures, biographies and statements by all of the candidates. This would become a Tribune election tradition continued through all present campaigns.

. . . And Beyond

The second issue jumped to 20 pages and reported on teacher concerns at John Bowne High School that undercover agents, posing as students, were being assigned to the school. “Drunkenness and the use of marijuana and more potent drugs are occurring with disturbing frequency in the school,” one teacher told the Tribune…An effort was begun to save the historic 1960s-era Flushing Town Hall from sale or demolition and turn it into a youth center. Local merchants wanted the building – then abandoned and housing vagrants – to be demolished for a new Flushing municipal parking lot…

By April, plans were developed for a large celebration in Flushing Meadows Park to celebrate the 325th anniversary of the founding of the town…

Century-old St. Joseph’s Convent was demolished over the protests of people who wanted to preserve the structure on Sanford Avenue along with its large surrounding park-like grounds. Court battles were begun to prevent the construction of a shopping center at the building. It later became Korvettes department store and a large apartment building…

The Trib ran its first play review of the seventh Dolly Levi – Ethel Merman – performing in “Hello Dolly” on Broadway…

The Trib’s first sports column appeared with the headline “The Flushing Mets: Amazins’ Try Repeat Performance,” referring to the hope that the Mets could recapture the magic of the previous year’s 1969 World Series miracle….

In May, Borough President Leviss blasted plans by Mayor John Lindsay to impose tolls on all the East River bridges…

In July, the Trib ran a front page editorial supporting the proposal by concerned Flushing residents for a desperately needed drug referral center for the area…

By September, the drive for a Greater Flushing Drug Center succeeded with the opening of a facility on Parsons Boulevard…

The drive to save the left-over World’s Fair buildings in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park from demolition and convert them into a Queens cultural and recreational center began with the formation of a civic activist group to preserve the park’s history and facilities.

The City informed angry local merchants and commuters that it will be “at least four years” before the long-awaited Flushing Bus Terminal will be constructed to alleviate the lines and congestion in downtown Flushing….

Booth Memorial Medical Center opened its major new extension building in December…

Blast From The Past

Congratulations on your 33rd Birthday. As Borough President at that time, I was proud to witness the birth of a sorely needed local newspaper.

I remember Congressman Gary Ackerman as a young schoolteacher who had the fortitude and vision to found the Queens Tribune.

I began reading the Queens Tribune from its inception in 1970, and I continue to read it every week.

Carry on the good work; we have both continued to age gracefully.