On New Year’s Day, Edward I. Koch was installed as the city’s new mayor. His first stop after his inaugural ceremony at City Hall was at P.S. 1 in Long Island City for a Queens reception that was open to the public – one of five stops in each of the boroughs of New York City....

In January, the Tribune profiled the amazing rebirth of the old Paramount-Astoria Studios. Director Sidney Lumet took over the huge refurbished sound stage to film his multimillion dollar production of “The Wiz,” starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Scenes for that film were also shot at the old New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park....

The Tribune became the first newspaper in the city to obtain a full one-on-one interview with the new mayor. Ed Koch sat down with Tribune editors and reporters for an extensive question-and-answer session in his still bare office at City Hall on his fourth day in office. Some of the questions were supplied by Tribune readers....

A Tribune report on a rash of bank robberies throughout Queens showed photos taken during actual robberies. A sidebar to the article entitled “Wave of the Future?” showed an amazing new concept in banking that would soon be seen in Queens: automated teller machines....  

Mud slides and pot holes became a major problem after a severe snowstorm in January....At the beginning of February, the second major snowstorm hit the metropolitan area. It began on a Sunday night, and by mid-Monday, the storm had reached blizzard proportions. Recalling the famous blizzard of 1888, the storm of 1978 shut down most of the city – with mass transmit, both buses and subways, halted and schools closed for most of the week. Most offices and stores were closed through Thursday. And, for the first time in the paper’s eight years of publishing, the Tribune was unable to print because access to the printing plant in Long Island City was blocked by snow. The issue came out three days later than usual. But Mayor Ed Koch got high marks from borough residents, who remembered Mayor John Lindsay’s disastrous handling of Queens’ snow removal during a 1969 blizzard. Despite the severity of the storm, sanitation workers were seen around the borough, around the clock, attempting to remove the snow....

Some heartless vandals ripped through a Flushing nursery school in February…A mountain of snow grew in Kissena Park – thanks to City and private trucks who dumped on the park while trying to clear the streets….  

The Tribune reported that an “Angel of Mercy” was walking around the corridors of Elmhurst Hospital and quietly putting elderly women patients to sleep. The patients were all clinging to the last hours of their lives, the Tribune reported….

A roller skating rink opened at the former World’s Fair Post Office Building in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park…The Tribune exposed that Queens College and York College had not been funded as well as City schools in other boroughs….

Schools Chancellor Irving Anker staged a bloodless coup and suspended School Board 26 in April after members refused to give him the racial makeup of the Board. The Board members said the request was unconstitutional, and was similar to what the Nazis did. Anker reinstated the Board the following week….  

Civic associations protested delays in the reconstruction of the Queensborough Hill branch of the Queens Borough Public Library…

Flushing Airport, the city’s only general aviation airfield, reopened in October, 14 months after Mayor Abe Beam shut it down.

Gary Ackerman stepped down as Tribune publisher and was sworn in as State Senator.