O’Connor not only played a Queens native on television, but was a Queens native himself.

Much unlike his TV family, O’Connor grew up with two brothers in a white-collar house in Forest Hills. His father was an attorney and his mother was a school teacher.

Ironically, neither of them would have liked the way "Archie" spoke of minorities.

O’Connor once said, "My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie’s - he called it lowbrow," O’Connor once said.

Lowbrow or not, Archie’s rantings and raving about minorities and liberals kept America smiling for 13 years after "All in the Family" premiered on January 12, 1971.

O’Connor went to Newtown High School in Elmhurst before serving as a merchant seaman in World War II.

He attended the University of Montana when he returned, where he began acting in plays and got interested in show business.

He finished his undergraduate studies at the National University of Ireland, and in the late 1950’s, began landing roles in theatre and films that included "Lonely Are the Brave," "Cleopatra," "Hawaii," and "Point Blank."

In 1971, he got cast as as the character of Archie in "All in the Family" and lived by that role until 1988, when he starred in a hit drama, "In the Heat of the Night." O’Connor received four Emmy Awards as Archie Bunker and one Emmy for "In the Heat of the Night."

He was married to his wife, Nancy Fields, for 50 years, and she was by his side at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, California when he died. O’Connor’s health had been deteroriating in recent years. He underwent coronary artery bypass surgery in 1989, and had a toe amputated in November 2000 because of a circulation problem. His personal life was not easier to deal with. In 1995, his only son Hugh killed himself as a result of a drug-related problem.

From the show’s opening credits to its final applause, viewers of "All in The Family" were treated to a half-an-hour in the life of a "typical" Queens family.

Much like America learned about Brooklyn in "The Honeymooners" and Manhattan on "I Love Lucy," Queens was Archie Bunker territory, and O’Connor made the borough famous among a national audience.

During the opening credits, while O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, who played Edith, croon "Those Were the Days," the Bunkers’ "house" is shown.

The building is an actual Queens home which still stands today.

The house is on Cooper Avenue in Glendale, and still looks almost exactly as it did when its image was first captured in the seventies.

Donald Richards, a life-long resident of the area where the Bunker’s TV house stands, said, "It’s amazing. The people in the neighborhood have changed, but the neighborhood itself looks similar. Archie’s place is frozen in time or something!"

Bill Richards, a life-long Queens resident, said, "Nobody knew Queens until that show. New York was just Manhattan to people. After that show, people realized there was more than one borough."

"I loved that guy,(Archie Bunker)" Sarah Bernstein, a 32-year Glendale resident, said. "He reminded me of one of my neighbors. He was so Queens. Not of his bigotry, of course, but his attitude. He acted like a regular guy from Queens. That’s why people loved the show. Who wouldn’t love Queens? And who wouldn’t love him?"

"All In The Family" also helped place the Queens Tribune on a national stage in an episode entitled "The Baby Contest" which aired on December 11, 1976.

In the episode, Archie enters his grandchild Joey into a "Most Beautiful Baby" contest, sponsored by the Tribune.

A fictional reporter, Harley Benson, comes to the Bunker’s home to interview the family, and in doing so put this community paper in the Hollywood spotlight for two episodes.

A quick look at the current Tribune masthead will show that Mr. Benson still "works" for the paper as a reporter.

That’s a little Tribune humor.

Despite the success of "All in the Family," Queens remained largely untouched by the tube for years after Archie’s quick wit left television.

Producers and writers refused to venture back into Queens, keeping TV storylines primarily in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Even the "All in the Family" spin-off "The Jeffersons" was set in Manhattan, as Archie’s ex-neighbors moved on up to the East Side in 1975.

But much of that changed in the 1990’s.

In 1996 Bill Cosby helped put Queens on the small screen with "Cosby." The house that appeared in the opening credits of "All In The Family" still stands in Glendale. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

In "Cosby," Bill Cosby’s 1996 sitcom set in Queens, the diversity of Queens was represented with a multi-ethnic cast and with scenes showing immigrants in their native attire.

But the show never really seemed to take off.

Many Americans still associated Bill Cosby with Cliff Huxtable and the Huxtable home in Brooklyn and seeing Cosby as a grouchy, retired Queens man may not have sat well with television viewers.

In 1998, "The King of Queens," premiered on CBS.

The show’s lead character, played by Kevin James, is a blue collar worker who delivers packages UPS-style and whose adventures include ventures include lying to his wife about working late so he can play football with his friends, and telling a friend of his that he attended his wedding when he actually didn’t.

The 1980s sitcom, "Dear John," starred Judd Hirsch as a divorcee trying to cope with his "abandonment" by attending group therapy at the "Rego Park Jewish Center." Hirsch’s character in the show moved to Queens from Long Island after his wife split – cleaning out his bank account in the process.

The sitcom "The Nanny," starring Queens-native Fran Drescher, was set in Manhattan, but based around the character of Fran Fein, a Jewish former hairdresser from Flushing living in a millionaire’s home.

Fran’s over-exaggerated accent and flamboyant attitude are used as the punch-line in almost every gag.

Queens doesn’t fare any better on the hit show "Seinfeld," as whiny, socially troubled George Costanza is portrayed as the show’s only Queens-native.

Real life Queens College alumnus Jerry Seinfeld has worn Queens College sweatshirts and drank from a Queens College mug on the show, at least promoting his alma mater.

On the early 1990’s show "Northern Exposure," the character of Dr. Joel Fleischman, played by Rob Morrow is a Flushing -raised doctor who fulfilled the terms of his Columbia medical school scholarship by serving for four years, under duress, as general practitioner in the town of Cicely, Alaska. Flieschman’s character was the only Jewish person in the entire Borough of Arrowhead County, Alaska.