The Queens Story:
Just Two Blocks From Utopia

While the rest of the staff is scurrying to put the finishing touches on our 30th Anniversary Special Edition: The Queens Story, I figured I’d try to spin something a bit different than my column’s political norm. Then again, I try that weekly.

This month marks the 30th Anniversary of The Queens Tribune — thirty years of covering the news and serving as a sounding board for the people of our borough. Strangely, the Tribune started in the same year that our present editor was born. Our art director was just a half a year old when our paper was born. Most of the rest of the staff are younger than the paper. Some in my position would worry that it makes them seem or feel old. Not the case! It gives me pride. Our paper has endured. Our story continues.

We covered the borough in the 1970s without fax machines or computers. We covered the borough in the 1980s without email or the internet. And we have covered the borough in the 1990s utilizing technological hoohahs that didn’t exist when the paper was born. Thirty years after our birth, we feel pretty damn good.

We think we look pretty good too. We were the first community newspaper on the east coast to use 4-color printing. In this issue, about one-third of our pages are in 4-color. We were the first weekly in metro New York to build a website (www.queenstribune.com). With over a thousand pages, the Tribune Online serves as a resource to hundreds of thousands of folks at home and across the globe who visit on the internet. Our original eight-page publication has given way to this mammoth tome with glossy wrap.

And we believe that the writing, reporting, advertising and commentary have similarly advanced to keep pace with today’s world and lead community journalism in a new challenging millennium. The Tribune is poised for the future. And we relish it. We’re hot!

As I look at the Queens story, my Queens story, the Tribune’s Queens story, I realize that we speak of a borough, vibrant and vital, filled with millions of stories told, untold, and yet to be written.

My Queens story began in the early fifties when my aunt, uncle and cousins moved to a place called Queens across the Whitestone Bridge from the Bronx. By 1955, we joined them, moving to Kew Gardens Hills from Jerome Avenue. We lived in a six-story co-op across the street from an under-built Queens College. The College track and fields were my backyard. I was in suburbia. And I loved it. It was great as a kid, teenager and right through college. My Queens was wonderful. But it was a different Queens from today.

The Tribune’s Queens started in 1970 in a desk at the back of a Main St. real estate office. Its compass was a guy named Ackerman — a former school teacher driven by community issues and a commitment to service. And as the borough grew so did the Trib. And Ackerman grew too! :-)

Since 1989, we’ve published out of our present home on the westbound service road of the LIE, two blocks from Utopia. When we first came to Queens there was no Long Island Expressway. Now, it serves not only as the world’s biggest parking lot but as the main thoroughfare connecting Manhattan to Long Island and uniting the diverse neighborhoods of our borough into one great community we call Queens.

For the past 21 years, I’ve been at the helm of the ship Tribune, steering it through the changing waters of our time. The face of Queens has changed. So has its heart and soul. It was wonderful back then. And it’s wonderful now — only different.

In 1992 we declared on our front page, "We Are The World." As the most ethnically diverse place on earth, we certainly have brought that Worlds Fair spirit into the new millennium. People from all corners of the globe now call Queens their home. For the most part they live here, in our Queens — in their Queens — in peace and harmony.

The face of Queens has changed since I first came here. The empty spaces are gone and old-timers struggle to keep the Queens they remember. The price of progress often impacts the suburban lifestyle and "quality of life" has become a shibboleth of community activists across the borough.

The new millennium has witnessed the arrival of our borough’s two millionth resident. That’s by my count — we’ll have to wait a year or more to see if the census folks can count as well. And as we grow, we experience growing pains. Queens is maturing. Its growth is slowing. Its heart is beating strongly. The soul of Queens – its people – are strong, and varied and beautiful.

So, as we look back across the millennium divide, we see not an aging borough, nor an aging newspaper, we see the legacy of wonder and riches that pave the way to our future.

May this special issue of the Queens story merely serve as a chapter in a wondrous volume we shall write together.

Thanx for the memories . . . and those to come.

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Tribune cover from 1992

I miss…

 

• Adventurers Inn
• The old Queens College track
• Swingline – the sign
• Bloomingdales, Fresh Meadows
• "Marvelous" Marv Thronberry and
  company
• Korvettes, Douglaston
• The Aquacade
• Servall Zipper sign – now the
  U-Haul tower
• Russ Togs, LIC
• The original Queens Festival
• The clock on top of Roosevelt Savings
  (now Roslyn Savings) on the Service
  Road of the LIE by Little Neck Parkway
• Liz misses Joey Queen
• The Turnpike Deli, The Pastrami King
• Roma Restaurant (Union Tpke at 192nd)
  & Sonny
• Lianne misses the Big Bow Wow
• David Oats
• Broadcaster’s Inn – the restaurant in
  the radio station on the service road
  of the LIE and 174 – a block from the
  present Trib Building.
• Jahns – especially on my birthday
• Undeveloped land
• RKO Keith – a sad story
• The Valencia, and a batch of other
  old theaters
• Lou Carnesecca
• Nedicks
• Spaldings are back!
• Sunnyside Gardens
• Parking spots
• Donald Manes
• John’s Bargain Stores, Consumers
  Distributors
• Alexanders, Crazy Eddies
• The Jets at Shea
• Queens in the ‘60s
• Elmhurst gas tanks
• Julie misses Rockaway Playland
• Ronzoni – the plant
• 25¢ franks, 15¢ slice of pizza
• Feathers on the Park
• Belgian waffles – how else do you
  recall the essence of those days in ’64?
• Candy stores – all over the borough,
  you know, luncheonettes
• Egg creams at those candy stores
• The word "groovy"• Observation decks
  at the airports
• The Amber Lantern & Armand
• The Horn & Hardardt Automat
  diagonally across Northern from
  Robert Hall
• Phone numbers with word exchanges:
  Liggett (LI), Boulevard (BO), Havemeyer
  (HA), Twining (TW), Virginia (VI),
  Stillwell (ST), etc.
• Brooklyn/Queens holidays
• Lil misses Pony rides on 164th St.
• LI Press – the paper
• Hamburger Express – A train with
  "Chiclets"
• Chiclets – the plant and the gum
• Tom & Jerry
• Simon & Garfunkle
• Wetson’s – the Queens forerunner of
  McDonalds
• The Weeping Beech
• Bikes without locks
• Flessel’s, Collge Point
• Taystee and Silvercup – the factories
• Jane Parker – you remember A&P’s
  bakery
• Bellacicco – the bread
• Lum’s
• and more . . . –M.S.

Me, I’m with all my friends.

Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com

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