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....January 7, 1:07 AM |
| 2004: A Look Back The Queens Tribune Year in Review
By Liz Goff It was a tumultuous year in Queens, with extreme highs and deadly lows. Two Queens soldiers were killed in Iraq, a former councilman was convicted of election fraud, the site of the Elmhurst gas tanks was bought to be turned into park space, the Queens Center Mall doubled its size and MoMA moved back to Manhattan.
Here is a quick glimpse at some of the stories that made headlines in the Queens Tribune in 2004. JANUARY A Fresh Meadows couple became the parents of Queens first baby of 2004. Rachel Lee arrived at four seconds after midnight, weighing in at eight pounds, three ounces…in a smokin’ hot real estate deal, the City purchased the $12 million former home of the Elmhurst Gas Tanks for just a buck…the feds cleared the way for the demise of Community School Boards, and Woodside fifth-grader Rate Tangorra headed to the Super Bowl, thanks to his winning essay in a Scholastic Books contest… Residents riled when a high-risk sex offender moved into his parents’ Bay Terrace condo, and when the City installed parking meters near residences in the area…two former staffers accused City Councilman Allan Jennings of sexual harassment…ownership of the historic Bowne House was transferred to the City, and the New Life Fellowship Church took title to the Queens Boulevard Elks Lodge building. Queens politicians probed a proposed expansion at an Astoria energy plant…families of the Wendy’s massacre victims blasted an appeals court ruling that let the fast food chain off the hook in a lawsuit that charged lax security at Wendy’s restaurants…disgraced former City Councilmember Sheldon Leffler avoided jail time at his sentencing on a campaign fraud conviction, but was barred from practicing law…the City introduced a plan to open three needle exchange program in Queens, and borough residents bundled up against a frigid blast that blew through the area… FEBRUARY
Army Spec. Roger Ling was killed during an assault in Iraq on Feb. 19, making him Queens’ third casualty of the current Iraqi conflict…Trib newshound Aaron Rutkoff broke the news that the historic Klein Farm may have been sold to a developer with ties to the notorious land baron Tommy Huang…opposing sides met to discuss building the new Jets stadium in Willets Point instead of Manhattan, and plans were unveiled for a new Wholesale Center on the side of the former Flushing Airport. Queens’ furry forecasters saw their shadows on Groundhog Day, predicting six more weeks of winter…a sordid sex scandal rocked the St. John’s University basketball team…a Trib feature focused on child abduction – and keeping kids safe – after near-abductions rocked two Queens neighborhoods, and Trib editor Angela Montefinise ruled the tabloids with an exposé on the bruised and bankrupt Parkway Hospital… Trib publisher Mike Schenkler titillated readers with his introduction of Queens reality series “Find A Woman For Bob”…The quirky contest drew a full column on the front page of the Feb. 14 N.Y. Times Metro Section…a Trib feature examined reasons behind a move to South Carolina by the Scalamandre Silk manufacturers, and the Trib announced winners in its annual Art Contest… MARCH Workers at Jamaica Hospital took to the streets to protest layoffs…John Kerry stumped in Queens on his road to the White House…President Bush quietly cut funding for the P.O. Edward Byrne Memorial Fund, angering local lawmakers from both parties…and officials announced plans for a new cancer treatment center at Elmhurst Hospital. The “Gay Marriage Debate” was discussed in a Trib feature…designs for the proposed Olympic Village in Long Island City were unveiled, as local politicians marched in the borough’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade…new development at the Queens Center Mall neared completion, and a local Community Board approved plans for a group home in Flushing – despite concerns voiced by angry neighbors…
A Trib feature examined and offered new insight on the 40th Anniversary of the death of Kitty Genovese…“War – One Year Later” examined the Iraqi conflict and its consequences on Queens…a series of stray voltage incidents led City lawmakers to question “who monitors Con Ed?”… an investigation pointed to human error in a Maspeth “runaway train” that wreaked havoc through several neighborhoods on March 10, and we continued to shovel our way out of the white stuff, heading to spring… APRIL Nude beach in Queens? Seinfeld buys the Mets? ‘King of Queens’ moves to Brooklyn? Take heart, the headlines on the Trib’s annual April Fools edition were all in fun…a Queens Village family mourned, and questioned the failure of the 911 system in the death of its 77-year-old patriarch…Trib Assistant Editor Stephen McGuire’s idea to preserve a “Redbird” subway car was turned into realty thanks to Borough President Helen Marshall… Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired up Dutch Kills residents by announcing plans to build six new firehouses – before even considering reopening the community’s silenced Engine Company 261…Queens Center officially cut the ribbon on its new expanse…four fetching females were regaled as winners in the “Find A Date For Bob” reality contest, and local business owners called the City on the safety of new safety measures installed on Queens Boulevard… Residents rallied to oust a suspected terrorist from their Laurelton neighborhood…officials broke ground for an unfunded park at Fort Totten…Maudie Scott, 110, the city’s oldest woman, died of pneumonia and Queens law enforcement put the brakes on drag racers following a near-fatal hit-run on Francis Lewis Boulevard. MAY The Trib announced winners in its annual “Mother of the Year” contest…Frank Principe, aka “Mr. Maspeth,” died on May 3…work began at the Borough Hall future site of the “Redbird” Information Center…a Trib feature explored the proposed Olympic Stadium battle, and a limited plan to clean up a toxic Queens site angered residents in College Point… A high-risk sex offender managed to walk into several Queens public schools, where he scanned through student records…questions were raised about the City’s private-bus takeover…developers confirmed interest in a Flushing municipal parking lot…a Queens car dealership was accused of fraud, and the City’s proposed needle-exchange program continued to stir controversy… Queens missing kids were featured in a May 20 examination of child abduction – and how authorities are handling the heart-wrenching crimes…drivers warned that service disruptions may result from the City’s proposed private bus line takeover…employees at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Jamaica rallied to stop the facility from closing…City “smoking cops” raided a Bayside restaurant where they saw smoke rising, despite a municipal ban, and Morton Manes, twin brother of the late, infamous Queens Borough President Donald Manes, died on May 20… JUNE
The Drake Business School startled students, and the public, by shutting its doors a week after its CEO was shot in an Astoria subway station…Mayor Mike Bloomberg marched with Queens residents in a series of Memorial Day Parades, and borough residents rallied to protest overdevelopment in the communities… Queens residents rallied again, to support storm-stricken victims in Haiti and the Dominican Republic…law enforcement officials probed a series of burglaries at the NYC Fire Department’s Fort Totten facility – the break-ins netted thieves rugs, FDNY uniforms and an FDNY vehicle, which was found almost immediately on a residential street near the security-shrouded fort… Queens’ war on terror took center stage in a Trib feature, and a City cop from Bayside accomplished what federal investigators couldn’t, by getting a fanatical Islamic preacher, nabbed in Britain, to spill the beans on his terrorist ties and activities… A Long Island City gas station owner thumbed his nose at suppliers by lowering prices…Inder Parmar posted signs and banners denouncing Getty Oil and the Bush Administration for skyrocketing prices at the pump…the corporate guys won, and Parmar was eventually forced out of business…outrage followed the actions of State Supreme Court Justice Laura Blackburne after she had a suspect escorted from her courtroom to evade his arrest – and Mayor Bloomberg vowed to rezone Queens in an effort to stop overdevelopment… JULY Queens District Attorney Richard Brown refused to blink when a State Court of Appeals panel ruled the state’s Death Penalty was unconstitutional…Brown refused to re-sentence death-row inmate John Taylor, mastermind of the Wendy’s massacre, charging that Taylor’s trial judge did not violate the 1995 statute in his jury instructions…Parkway Hospital was sold to a physician, Queens’ 14 Community Boards were audited, and a Queens feature probed changes to the City school system… A Queens man battled back after the Army rejected him because of his tattoos…the controversy surrounding Justice Laura Blackburne continued, as a State panel probed her actions…the borough celebrated Independence Day without a bang, and a “missing” amnesiac patient at Elmhurst Hospital was reunited with his family… Trib editor Peter Gelling examined cop shortages at Queens precincts during the upcoming GOP convention…embattled St. Joseph’s Hospital entered its first phase of closure…officials at MoMA Queens prepared to move back to Manhattan, and Senator Hillary Clinton aided the wife of a construction worker – killed on an Elmhurst job site – in the woman’s effort to come to the U.S. from China to claim the victim’s body, and on a rain-drenched night a Long Island man barely escaped death when the Steinway Street bridge collapsed onto the Grand Central Parkway July 23… AUGUST
Authorities beefed-up security inside and outside the Long Island City Citicorp Tower, and other Queens financial institutions after they were identified as primary targets by a terrorist…the “Voice of the Mets,” Bob Murphy, passed away on Aug. 3…the City purchased Udall’s Cove in Douglaston…a “network tangle” blacked-out Mets games from Time Warner Cable, and investigators tried to determine how a tiger romped away from a Forest Park Circus, to end up on a Queens highway… Community Board 11 welcomed new District Manager, Susan Seinfeld…protestors mapped out their route through Queens to the GOP Convention in Manhattan…former Councilman Sheldon Leffler was slapped with a $400,000 fine by the Board of Elections for his campaign shenanigans…an Elmhurst man was arrested in North Carolina after authorities spotted him videotaping historic landmarks, the Mets were back on cable, and funding of an Olympic pool in Flushing Meadows Park was on shaky ground… SEPTEMBER A Flushing marine faced Court Martial in the death of an Iraqi detainee – the first American serviceman charged with abuse in the current conflict. Sgt. Gary Pittman was held at Camp Pendelton during his trial…the US Open tennis tournament came to Queens, surrounded by the greatest security ever, and detainees at a Queens Detention Facility called two hunger strikes… Queens officials opened the borough’s first skateboarding park in Rockaway…Queens Parks Commissioner Richard Murphy retired…NYPD officials called on auxiliary cops to stand in for cops assigned to the GOP Convention…Gov. George Pataki announced plans to send hundreds of state jobs from Queens to Manhattan, and the Trib told the story of Kathleen Santora, the younger sister of Sept. 11 Firefighter Christopher Santora, who was on her way to a second stint in Iraq after joining the Army in tribute to her fallen brother… The nasty race for a Jackson Heights Senate seat turned nastier, when tires were slashed and tongues cut into rival candidates’ posters…a probationary Brooklyn firefighter took the mound at Shea Stadium on Sept. 11. Firefighter Tommy Geis threw the first pitch in memory of his dad, Ronnie Geis, who was assigned to HazMat 1 in Maspeth on Sept. 11, 2001…the Trib examined Queens “school woes,” and Marine Sgt. Gary Pittman was found guilty of abuse in Iraq at his military court martial…Jimmy Meng of Flushing, after defeating incumbent Barry Grodenchik in a primary, seemed poised to become the first Asian Assemblymember, and an Elmhurst man who kidnapped his estranged wife at gunpoint from her job at Elmhurst Hospital Center was nabbed by cops in North Carolina, after dragging the woman with him… OCTOBER Army Pfc. James Prevete was killed in Iraq on Oct. 8…Prevete was the fourth Queens resident to die in the Mideast conflict…teachers at Grover Cleveland High School riled over a Dept. of Education requirement that forced them to pass through security checkpoints along with students and visitors…a final ruling left the decision to screen teachers with school principals, letting teachers at Grover Cleveland off the hook…car theft was down in Queens, and teams of FBI agents and City cops started digging for the remains of mobsters believed buried at an Ozone Park mob “boneyard”… A new city law took aim at spectators who cheer-on drag racers…a probe revealed that an underground fire that shut down service at Penn Station in late September began with a downed power line in Queens…federal agents and City cops shut down the Atlantic Beach Bridge after an Astoria man set-off a terror alert. Hippocrates Koutsoupakis had a cache of weapons and live ammunition in his Astoria apartment when cops searched it…and Queens native Rodney Dangerfield died Oct. 5… Transit officials announced plans to shut down 10 token booths in Queens…forensic teams unearthed the remains of two mob capos at the Ozone Park boneyard, along with a large number of personal effects belonging to the two men…a shortage of flu vaccine sent Queens seniors into a frenzy…the Elmhurst Hospital wife-kidnapper was arraigned in Queens following his extradition from North Carolina…plans were shelved for development on the former Flushing Airport site… LIC businessman Eugene Levy was gunned-down during a robbery at his dry cleaning plant by a gunman who made-off with almost $20,000…a Queens grand jury took up the case of a retired City cop who shot and killed an Astoria deli clerk, and a drunk driver mowed-down two young boys in Fresh Meadows, killing one boy and gravely injuring the other… NOVEMBER
Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lam became Queens fifth casualty in the Iraqi conflict on Nov. 8…a bridge painter working on an underpass on the Grand Central Parkway near Northern Boulevard was shot to death by a homeless man who turned on the worker – who had befriended him…the Steinway Street Bridge collapse crippled local businesses, who met with City officials in an angry exchange…environmentalists found toxic materials on the College Point waterfront, and the City’s new “R2A” zoning law kicked-in and hit the streets of eastern Queens. Gov. Pataki called for a “Deadly Driver” law to charge drunk drivers with a felony…the mother of the boy injured in the Fresh Meadows drunk driving incident filed a $50 million lawsuit against the driver…incumbents reigned in local elections, and while Queens residents stuffed their birds in preparation for their Thanksgiving feasts, volunteers sliced turkey, dished-out cranberries and stuffing at dinners served to the homeless in Queens… The Trib examined the homeless problem in Queens…the City shelled-out $125 million for new buses in the borough – and the world responded to the death of Yasser Arafat…federal agents probed Mets reliever John Franco for possible mob ties…shoppers hit the malls on “Black Friday” to start their holiday shopping…a new wing was dedicated at the Hall of Science, and the murder of a Flushing woman stumped Queens detectives, while the Trib gave space to Queens’ soldiers heading to Iraq, to share their thoughts with family and friends… DECEMBER Three restaurant owners from across the borough were arrested in Health Department sting operations…St. John’s University pulled out of Big East contention when it admitted that a member of its team had been illegally taking money…The Campaign For Fiscal Equity lawsuit moved forward with a judge being advised to order an additional $5.6 billion in school funding for New York City every year…Wal-Mart announced plans to build in Queens, though they would not conform the location – reportedly between the Sears mall and the LIE just off Queens Boulevard in Rego Park…former Queens Councilman Matt Troy died Dec. 3…Community Boards began to debate new criteria for renaming streets… Queens led the city in crime reduction with a 7.5 percent drop from the previous year…Dr. Robert Hampton stepped down as president of York College…on the same day Councilman Tony Avella introduced ideas for legalizing sports betting in the state, State Sen. Frank Padavan demanded the removal of holiday themed scratch-off games…Councilman John Liu’s transportation committee examined ways of keeping New York Waterways ferries afloat…merchants along Steinway Street who had been promised to have the collapsed bridge fixed in time fort he holidays were informed that they would have to wait until mid-January…a new pump unit on Shellbank Basin in Howard Beach seemed to remove the sulfur smell that had been prevalent in the area for years…the Rockefeller drug laws were rolled back, giving more leeway to prosecutors and judges in sentencing drug offenders. The debated R2A zoning was updated to remove many loopholes that would have still allowed “McMansions” to be constructed…one of the biggest counterfeit goods seizures in Queens history, $1.3 million worth, was nabbed at Aqueduct…former Councilman Sheldon Leffler was denied an appeal…the family responsible for a deadly Jackson Heights fire Dec. 14 fled the country to return to Ecuador. Queens natives and immigrants reached out to send aid to victims of the deadly tsunami in Southeast Asia that killed more than 150,000 people and police aided a woman Christmas Eve who gave birth in a taxi on her way to Elmhurst Hospital. |
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Water Rate Hike Town Hall Meeting FDNY Implements New Dispatch System Two Arrested In Internet Sting Hit-And-Run Driver Turns Himself In Media Piracy Penalties Stiffened Budget Halts College Services Classic Picasso Prints On Display Harassed Tenants Building Support Treatment Lessens Side Effects Youth Baseball Conflicts Queens Mets And Amazing Schools: City Announces Rockaway Ferry 30th Candidates Squabble Over Details Water Board Blasted For Rate Hike Supermarket Stiffs Baggers Katz Has Baby Boy New Bank Offers Loans To The Poor Senate Approves Summer Gas-Tax Suspense Queens Inaugurates Its Jazz Orchestra New Treatment Battles Epilepsy City Provides Youth With Summer Jobs Queens Air Gets an ‘F’ Report Says Acquittals Cap Dramatic Bell Trial | ||||||||||||||||
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