Simone is jumping back into the modeling game and the Queens Tribune gets some of the credit. Simone’s mom is an avid reader of the Trib and that’s how Simone started checking out the Model of the Week. Now this Queens Village beauty is one.

"I’m a Queens girl for sure," said Simone, who was born and raised in Queens Village. "I like Queens because it is a tight-knit community. Everybody knows everybody."

She feels secure in the neighborhood and likes the diversity, which now includes West Indian and East Indian people. She also gets pleasure from the local restaurants.

"I can eat, eat, eat and not gain any weight," said Simone who delights in the spicy food of Twin Ponds, a West Indian restaurant, which serves Curry Chicken and Jerk Chicken. She also enjoys eating at Country Style and Big John’s Pizzeria.

Life is busy for Simone who is a part-time executive secretary at an investment firm and is a full-time student at Baruch College where she studies marketing and advertising. But Simone does most of her homework during the week and saves weekends for bumping and grinding on the dance floor.

"I party a lot," said Simone who loves to dance at Club Amazura in Jamaica where she moves to salsa and meringue. She also enjoys their live reggae shows. She is quite a dancer and first started with ballet at the tender age of four. Now she takes classes in jazz funk and hip-hop.

Simone also danced in talent shows at Martin Van Buren HS where she was an assistant choreographer. At Van Buren, Simone was also the junior class president and senior secretary. She attended PS 33 in Queens Village.

At 14, Simone started interviewing at various places for modeling, but it took up too much time. In her senior year of high school, she was picked to appear in her gown for PromGuide magazine.

"Modeling has always been my passion," said Simone.

At some point, Simone hopes to hone her creative and entrepreneurial skills to start her own business . . . a modeling agency or a fashion design company. For special occasions Simone will design her own dresses.

One great thing about Simone’s beauty is that it’s 100 percent natural. "I don’t wear any makeup." The rare times that she appears in makeup are for photo shoots.

Muscle-bound men don’t move Simone. She prefers a, "sensitive, caring and most of all very- educated guy…somebody that complements me."

Tony Soprano may be a mobster out in Jersey, but the fact is he does most of his shootings in Long Island City. The mob hit series, "The Sopranos," is filmed at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, overlooking the Queensboro Bridge. The home of the former bread company is actually making a lot of dough as tv and movie studios.

Silvercup is also home to the CBS fall series "The Education of Max Bickford," starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Legendary actor, Al Pacino, graced Stage E for his upcoming film, "People I Know." He plays a New York publicist who gets sucked into the underworld of sex and crime as his client makes a run for Senate.

Stage B was invaded by mice for the filming of "Stuart Little II." The film features voices of Geena Davis and Michael J. Fox.

Saturday Night Live funnyman Adam Sandler shot scenes of his latest film, "Deeds," on Stage 2.

And Columbia's Queens-based Men In Black starring Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, was shot at Silvercup.

She was one of the first responders at Ground Zero immediately following the Sept 11 attacks and despite the fact she has been highly visible in recent weeks — appearing with President George W. Bush and on television commercials — the Queensite at the head of the world’s most well-known relief agency has called it quits, citing policy differences as the major reason.

American Red Cross President Bernadine Healy announced her resignation on Oct. 26 citing differences with the board as the reason for her departure.

"The board felt I was out ahead of them making policy. They didn’t have any more confidence in me,’’ Healy told reporters during a press conference.

In an article that appeared in the online publication called 15 minutes Magazine, Healy said she’s a Queens girl, having grown up at the base of the Queensboro Bridge.

"I went to St. Patrick’s parochial school in Long Island City. I graduated Hunter High School when it was a girl’s school. My light reading then was Heidegger," Healy was quoted as saying.

After making her resignation announcement, she also told reporters "there was a severe difference of opinion’’ with the board and said that she had no choice about staying in her post which she intends to leave by Dec. 31.

Healy is one of only two doctors to head the American Red Cross.

She replaced Elizabeth Dole, wife of former Kansas Senator Bob Dole as the relief organization’s president in 1999.

At 75-years-old, Astoria boy Tony Bennett is still singing his heart out. Bennett has proved his is one of the greatest voices and he’s ready to prove it again on Nov.6 with his new album, "Playin’ With My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues."

On the album, Bennett sings duets with greats such as Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, Ray Charles and B. B. King.

Bennett has become quite a painter and devotes his time to causes like the Frank Sinatra School of Performing Arts in Astoria, which opened last month. Legend has it, that at his parties, "Old Blue Eyes" Sinatra used to constantly play Bennett’s records.

On Sept. 11, 78-year-old Alton Burton was home in his Brooklyn apartment when his son came rushing to tell him that the World Trade Center was on fire. As he rushed to the window and saw the plume of smoke with disbelieving eyes he muttered, "eight years of my work up in smoke."

"It looked like a movie," he told QConf, "The Towering Inferno."

Burton was an NYU educated engineer when then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed him, the Port Authority’s lone black engineer to head the staff planning the Trade Center. Burton worked on the project from ‘62 to ’69 and now recalls with precision, the minutest detail of the structure, which he said was sprayed with a fire retardant.