Goals For The Future

What Is The Role Of The Queens Chamber?

By Stephen Eagar

The purpose of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, stated in our 1911 by-laws and repeated today on our web page, is "to promote the general welfare of the Borough of Queens, City of New York, and to foster its commerce."

Stephen Eagar

An impressive statement. But what does it mean?

The answer has changed throughout the Chamber’s 86-year history. In the 1910s and 1920s, the Chamber agitated for subways and "arterial highways" like Queens and Astoria boulevards. In the 30s and 40s, we wanted bridges, parks and parkways. The 50s and 60s were spent promoting development of housing and highways. The 70s and 80s involved saving the city from its financial problems. Now, in the 90s, the focus is on the transition from heavy manufacturing to light industry and services.

As the borough’s preeminent, county-wide business organization, the Queens Chamber necessarily tends to deal with the "big issues" of development in Queens. When the Chamber was founded 86 years ago, the big issue was subways; now, it’s airport access. In recent years we’ve also worked to spur the development of Queens West, to reduce the costs of doing business in Queens by advocating reduced taxes and workers’ compensation reform.

We also work to bring new business to Queens. In addition to our work with the Borough President’s Economic Development Networking Council, the Chamber provides demographic information and other help to companies interested in locating in Queens. In the past year, we’ve helped Costco come to Long Island City and Sears and Circuit City open in Rego Park.

The Chamber also helps orient people moving to Queens; every year we receive hundreds of calls from people from across the country and around the world asking for information about our borough. And we have hundreds more who have visited our web site to find out what Queens has to offer.

The Chamber is, of course, primarily a membership organization, so assistance to our members is a major purpose. We hold frequent luncheons, seminars and networking events which allow our members to meet and do business in a variety of sessions; usually, these events also provide information useful to Queens businesses. We also provide information to our members on business news and trends, as well as legislative developments, through our bi-monthly magazine.

Queens has more than 1.9 million residents, enough to make it fourth largest city in the United States. Thus our business community and economy are as complex as entire cities, and are part of the even more complex economies of the entire city, the state, the nation, and the world. The Chamber’s role is to help businesses operating in Queens wade through the complexities of doing business in the borough. And, in the process, make the borough a better to place to live, to work, and do business.

(Eager is the current president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce.)