The issue of co-op conversions heated up throughout the borough, as more and ore tenants were faced with the prospect of their landlord’s desire to convert from rental to cooperative. Tenant groups and legislators were proposing new ways that tenants could fight this process if they chose to do so.... When a giant anti-nuclear rally was held in Manhattan, the Tribune published a special section on the horrors of a potential nuclear holocaust entitled “It Could Happen Here.”...

Tribune reporter Mike Siconolfi conducted an extensive and ongoing investigation of the charges of mismanagement and overcrowding at Queens General Hospital. The Tribune also conducted a series of investigative reports on the issue of who would run the shorefront property known as Fort Totten. Forty-six acres of surplus land were available in the historic and beautiful Bayside fort; however, its future use became clouded when State Senator Gary Ackerman and Assemblyman Leonard Stavisky charged that the federal government was engaged in a potential “land grab” by giving the site over to a private veterans group, which many had raised questions about concerning its fundraising and programs. A coalition of 70 community and historical groups eventually worked out an alternative use for the site, that would keep the grounds under public ownership and give a wider variety of use to the site. At year’s end, however, the Army requested back some of the land, again clouding the issue.... Many areas of Queens were undergoing major revitalization programs that were breathing economic and social life back into their respective communities. Two such areas profiled by the Trib in 1981 were Elmhurst, a fine old village making headway in letting the city know it offered more than those (in)famous gas tanks and the Rockaways, Queens’ community by the sea that was the topic of debate over the pros and cons of casino gambling: Would it be a boon or a boondoggle for a neighborhood crying out for help?...  

In 1981, Borough President, Donald Manes marked a decade in office.

In April, Tribune reporter Stephanie Bostic reviewed the cultural growth of the borough and detailed the work being done by a myriad of groups. The Tribune individually profiled some of the major institutes, such as the Queens Museum, the Queens Symphony Orchestra, Queens Botanical Gardens, Alley Pond Environmental Center, Queens College, the Jamaica Arts Center and Fiorello LaGuardia Community College.

Shea Stadium was silent during the early days of spring and summer as the strike silenced the Mets, but the Tribune reported on the other ballgame in town – the Little League, the almost forgotten organization that is the breeding ground for future star ballplayers and that was flourishing in Queens. It turned what could have been a dreary summer into a happy one for thousands of kids and their parents. Baseball in Queens survived without the Mets....

The state of the borough’s sports teams was a critical question, addressed by a state report that the Tribune got a copy of. The report proposed that a domed sporting complex be built around Shea Stadium and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.... Reporter Judi Freeman investigated the state of emergency care in our borough in July. The chances of a Queens resident getting immediate help from 911 and the city’s Emergency Medical Service were examined, as was the critical role of hospitals and the volunteer ambulance corps.... According to all the studies, Queens had the best subway service in New York. But in October, the Tribune double-checked the statistics – and simply asked the riders – and found that the borough’s subways became just another bad apple in the city’s already rotten barrel. The Tribune’s report revealed that the “E” line from Queens to Brooklyn and Manhattan was the best of the routes, with the fewest breakdowns and delays. The “F” train came up as a slightly poor cousin to the “E,” and the figures on the IRT No.7 line might astonish commuters who insisted it was the slowest, most beat-up way to get from Queens to Manhattan. It had one of the best records in the city. But the riders who talked to the Tribune offered their comments about the Queens transit lines, and their comments needed no qualification or survey to support them. They were the voices of a first-hand catastrophe. And it continued....  

There’s more to Elmhurst than just the tanks, the Tribune reported in March.

The smell of Russian golubtsi and pirogi baking in ovens seeped tantalizingly into the summer air, perking up the noses of children playing outside. On the corner, a bearded man sat waiting for a bus, engrossed in the latest issue of Novaya Gazeta [the New Newspaper]. It was a Saturday morning, not in Kiev, but in Forest Hills – where a massive absorption of USSR emigrés had established it as the second-largest Soviet population center in the U.S., certainly casting a distinct Russian accent on the future tenor of this Queens neighborhood. The Tribune examined the phenomenon with a series of articles in August....

The Tribune examined the problem of stray animals – the number of which increase each year when owners abandon the pets they give as cuddly presents for their kids. The Trib focused on the plight of the ASPCA and other humane organizations trying to cope with the problem. As a public service, the Tribune published a classified ad free of charge for anyone who was either offering a pet for free adoption or who was looking for their lost animal.…In August, Tribune editor David Oats gave a personal look at Robert Moses, the man whose vision changed the shape of Queens. From his removal of the old Corona dumps to make way for the 1939 World’s Fair and then later, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, to the roads, parks, bridges, tunnels, parkways and playgrounds, Moses literally created the landscape we call Queens today. He died in August at the age of 92....

In July, Tribune Associate Editor Mitch Albom examined the topic, “What’s Happening to Teenagers?” His report showed that the adolescent heirs apparent to Woodstock, Vietnam and Disco have their own ideas about growing up.

Parents and youth workers, sociologists and cops, and the kids themselves, talked about Queens youths, many in urban areas – for whom the apparent yardstick for “success” is toughness.