February 1970: The Tribune is born in the back of a Main St. real estate office by a guy named Ackerman.
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Three Dozen Years: The Best Is Yet To Come
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
While the rest of the staff is scurrying to put the finishing touches on our 36th Anniversary Special Edition: I figured I’d try to spin something a bit different than my column’s political norm. Then again, I try that weekly.
December 1987: The Trib introduces four color to the East Coast community newspaper industry. |
This month marks the 36th Anniversary of The Queens Tribune — 36 years of covering the news and serving as a sounding board for the people of our borough. Strangely, our managing editor was born within six months of the birth of the Tribune. More than half of our staff is 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.
June 1980: The Trib introduces the glossy wrap to celebrate its 20th Anniversary. |
We covered the borough in the 1970s without fax machines or computers. We covered the borough in the 1980s without e-mail or the internet. And we covered the borough in the 1990s utilizing technological hoohahs that didn’t exist when the paper was born. And now, three dozen years after our birth, we’re out there technologically and we feel pretty darn good.
June 1992: The Tribune first delcared Queens to be at the center of the multi-cultural universe. |
We think we look pretty good, too. We were the first community newspaper on the East Coast to use four-color printing. We led community journalism into packaging its product with glossy wrap and color pages. We were the first weekly in metro New York to build a Web site - www.queenstribune.com. With thousands upon thousands of pages, the Tribune Online serves as a resource to well over 1 million visitors each year, at home and across the globe, who view us on the internet. Our original eight-page publication has given way to this mammoth tome with glossy wrap and extensive online international views.
February 1995: The Trib goes silver in celebration of the stories it covered for a quarter of a century. |
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 and changing millennium. The Tribune is poised for the future. And we relish it. We’re hot!
As I look at Queens today, I realize that we speak of a borough, vibrant and vital, filled with millions of stories told, untold, and yet to be written.
My unique Queens story began in the early 50s 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.
March 1997: The Tribune offers a guide to the future in celebration of its 27th Anniversary. |
The Tribune’s Queens started in 1970 in a desk at the back of a Main Street 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 the Schenklers first came to Queens there was no Long Island Expressway. Now, it is the main thoroughfare connecting Manhattan to Long Island and uniting the diverse neighborhoods of our borough into one great community we call Queens.
February 2000: The Queens Story was the theme of the Trib’s 30th Anniversary Special edition. |
For more than a quarter of a century, 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.
June 2003: The Tribune celebrates a third of a century sharing its unique spin on Queens. |
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 World’s 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.
March 2005: The Tribune’s own people and story marked last year’s 35th Anniversary issue. |
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” remains the shibboleth of community activists across the borough.
The new millennium has witnessed the arrival of our borough’s two millionth resident. 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 historic 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 Anniversary Issue of the Queens Tribune merely serve as a chapter in a wondrous volume we shall continue to write together.
Thanx for the memories . . . and those to come.
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MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com
Not 4 Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
