....April 8, 9:53 AM
 
 
   
Even With The News, A Little Humor Goes A Long Way

Queens Tribune Publisher Michael Schenkler said of Borough President Helen Marshall, “she looks wonderful and is handling the pregnancy like a 30 year old.”
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

Somehow, I’m surprised to be writing this.
Several phone calls last week – some anonymous – seemed to suggest that I was a blankety blank and ran a newspaper not worth a blank.

The cause: our (almost) annual April Fool’s Day spoof.
You see, most years, in our edition on or just preceding April 1, we print a phony “Queens Deadline” page — usually on page three.

We did it this year and as luck would have it April 1 came out on a Thursday, so the dateline of the page was the actual date of last week’s newspaper.

In four stories with appropriate photos we related:
A Nude Beach was to open on the Douglaston Golf Course.
The TV sitcom “King of Queens” was to have the lead family move to Brooklyn.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld purchased the New York Mets.
Queens Beep Helen Marshall was pregnant at age 74.
We thought it all pretty clever and, well, funny. We offered it to our readers to entertain. In years past our April Fool’s page has caused considerable reaction.

Several years ago we wrote of the toll booths planned for the Van Wyck Expressway. A local Korean newspaper picked up the story and ran it the following week as straight news . . . Oooops!

Perhaps a decade ago when the Federal Government announced its intentions to divest itself of Fort Totten, we took the opportunity to create a story which resulted in a rather amazing community stir. When the Tribune announced that Disney had purchased Fort Totten and planned a new super theme park — “Fort Disney” — the locals reacted. We are told that homes went up for sale as people planned to flee the chaos of traffic and people.

I remember walking into Hyacinth, a wonderful local gift shop, several weeks after the April 1 article and Sarah, the shop’s proprietor, started yelling at me. She took the story to heart and decided to flee Bayside. Well years later, Sarah went to California, but we are happy to report that no one actually left the area because of our story.

Several of the handful of people who called us last week were actually angry:

“Ms. Marshall can’t be pregnant,” why would you say that . . . “Is it true?”

“I called Shea Stadium and they don’t know anything about Seinfeld.”

“I can’t stay in Douglaston, my kids can see the golf course from our house!”

Hey Douglaston, don’t sell your house! It was merely our attempt to make your April Fool’s Day a bit more enjoyable.
Hey guys, loosen up.

We at the Trib take our mission seriously. We are committed to informing the people of Queens about the news of Queens — the news that impacts their lives. We are committed to advocating for the borough and its two million plus people. We are committed to doing what we can to make life in Queens a little bit better.

We want your schools to be better, your air to be cleaner, your property values higher, your job opportunities greater, your roads better, your traffic less, your City services improved, your quality of life improved, and yes, we want you to smile and laugh just a little bit more.
So, although we take our mission seriously — very seriously — we would never want to approach covering the wonderful borough of Queens without a lighthearted smile.

We know when it’s time to be serious.

Our readers should know when it’s time to smile.

And, by the way, Helen Marshall has not denied the fact that she is pregnant.
--------------------------------------------
Michael Schenkler can be reached at:
MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

 
 
Council Speaker Fans The Flames, To Reopen Firehouses

Henry Stern
By Henry J. Stern

While the 2004 presidential campaign is well under way, the 2005 mayoral campaign is nudging along right behind.
The gradually warming local political climate is illustrated by Speaker Gifford Miller’s press conference calling for the reopening of six firehouses closed last year. Mr. Miller is right on one point: the city can afford to reopen the firehouses. The question is whether or not this is a wise expenditure, and what will the city be unable to afford if it reopens the firehouses.

The call for reopening is a siren song. First, people do not want to burn to death or lose their homes or jobs, and anything that makes those possibilities less likely, even remotely so, is appealing. Second, the presence of firefighters, usually strong young men, in a community is reassuring even when they are not fighting fires. Many little boys want to become firemen when they grow up, and thousands do. One of my nephews is a firefighter, although not in New York City. Third, the presence of a city facility in a neighborhood gives people the sense that the city supports the community.

The underlying issue the Fire Department faces is the enormous decline in severe fires, since buildings are by and large no longer built out of wood. Many fire stations were built over 80 years ago, when the city was much more combustible. Changes in construction materials and installation of sprinkler system could have prevented the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, where 146 people, mostly young women, died. In that case, fire doors were locked and many jumped out of windows. The site of that fire, the northwest corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, is now a national historic landmark.

The worst fire in the city’s history was the burning of the steamboat General Slocum on June 15, 1904, where about 1,400 people, mostly women and young children, were burned to death or drowned in Hell Gate. The centennial of this tragedy is 10 weeks away, and the city should hold an appropriate memorial observance.

The number of civilian fire deaths has steadily declined over the years. The number of structural fires has fallen even more sharply. As a result, we simply do not need the firefighting strength we currently maintain. Mayor Giuliani, who was a great friend of the Fire Department, found them additional work as first responders in medical emergencies. He succeeded in merging the Emergency Medical Service (EMS), which operates ambulances, into the Fire Department.

The number of firehouses should have been reduced many years ago, but no mayor dared to do it, not even the good ones. The disaster of Sept. 11, 2001, in which 343 firefighters lost their lives, many through communications failures, created enormous sympathy for and goodwill towards firefighters.

Unfortunately, a few recent instances of drunkenness, violence and drug use at firehouses illustrate the timeless problem of human beings misbehaving when they have too little to do.

The exploitation of the firehouse closings for personal political advantage is a sample of what the next two years will bring. It is not evil for a candidate to exploit an issue; it is politics, the essence of democracy. There is no law against pandering, and in any event, one man’s pandering is another man’s truth-telling.

The firehouse issue is, however, symbolic to both sides. To the politicians and the unions, it is a cruel decision that could possibly kill people, and certainly will result in fewer jobs and less union dues. To those who have to pay the city’s bills and balance its books, this is a small and harmless reduction to a bloated service, indicating fiscal prudence and the knowledge that the city must economize in order to avoid disaster. The city treasury is not a bottomless pit.

Awareness of this bite of reality is more common in executives, who must balance budgets, than in city and state legislators who are often more willing to tax, to borrow and to spend. That is one way for a legislator to become an executive. Then, he can worry.

The mayor’s position may be more meritorious, but he is already the mayor.

The speaker’s position is probably more popular with voters. However, spenders have a moral, but not a legal responsibility to offer alternate reductions when they demand increases. The municipal budget is not a zero-sum game. In fact, the chickens have already come home to roost, but we keep borrowing eggs from the one basket of taxation in which we have put them.

Henry Stern was NYC Parks Commissioner for fifteen years and a Councilmember for nine. He is founder and director of NYCivic, a good government group. He can be reached at: starquest@nycivic.org

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.