A Guide To The Official Guide
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
Some things endure.
The Queens Tribune’s Official Guide to Queens is one of those special creations for a publisher that leaves its mark on the industry and the area and just keeps on going and giving.
More than 20 years ago, in 1991, I sat in my storefront office on Kissena Boulevard and told David Oats and a handful of other staff members that we were the paper of record in Queens and part of our responsibility was recording history and providing for our readers the borough’s information in a usable, reader-friendly format.
The Blue Book you are holding (or the online, ipad, or iphone edition you are viewing) is the 2012 version of an annual guide which is in its third decade of publication. Year after year, the annual Tribune Guide to Queens has been the most comprehensive working reference book for all who have occasion to navigate through Queens, its information, bureaucracy and life.
As we at the Tribune enter our fifth decade of publishing, we take note of the Official Guide, just half our age, but our most referred publication each year.
The Trib has been chronicling the lives of the people of Queens for more than four full decades and we continue to try our best to bring some order to the hodgepodge of County and City officialdom, as well as answering some basic questions about our borough – the most ethnically diverse place anywhere on Earth. We hope our efforts presented on these pages help our readers cope.
We believe our Official Guide is indispensable to anyone living in, doing business in, researching or even passing through Queens, New York. We use it as a regular phone directory to everything Queens, an elected-officials-names spell-checker, an atlas (community boards, legislative districts and much more), an emergency contact guide and a mini-encyclopedia/fact checker. It provides you with contact information for all the resources to unjangle your chaos, soothe your soul, enrich your mind and get you where you want to go.
We keep a copy of The Queens Blue Book next to our desk at home and one in each of our offices - here in Queens, and in Huntington, where we guide the Long Islander newspaper group started by Walt Whitman in 1838. Inheriting the legacy of Whitman, one of the greatest American chroniclers in our history, has given me new insight into publishing history and perspectives on the meaning of a newspaper.
When we first published our official guide in 1991, the concept of a newspaper-produced reference book for its readers was unheard of. An ever-increasing number of newspapers throughout the City, State and nation have followed our lead and our Official Guide concept is being embraced by newspaper publishers coast-to-coast. We have created the industry standard. It’s been imitated by many - but never equaled.
The Tribune has pioneered much more than just the “Official Guide” concept. Community journalism on the east coast saw its first four-color pages in 1988 in the Trib. The glossy covers first dressed the Trib way back in 1990; our Web site appeared over a dozen years ago and was followed by an “e-mall,” Queens’ first online shopping portal. Our iPad and iPhone apps have brought new portability to Queens news. We’re not stopping now.
The Official Guide To Queens 2012, which you have in your hands – at least virtually, is just the beginning of the story. For the past seven years, the Tribune has been publishing regular magazine specials — stitched and trimmed, bound in a glossy wrap with an in-depth Queens-focused theme.
Watch for these specials. They will inform, entertain and hopefully cause you to think. We’ll provide the official info and the unofficial dope. We’ll compile the information and then push the envelope. Our specials will be found throughout the year, on the coffee tables, office shelves and desks of the decision makers, party goers, businesspeople and families whose daily lives include the excitement of Queens.
Watch for our super March 2012 Glossy Souvenir Edition celebrating the Queens Tribune’s 42nd Annversary.
There will be a lot more excitement in months ahead. Readers, grab your copy - the glossies move fast - or mail in your $12 subscription (see subscription form page 73 - or find it on our website: www.queenstribune.com). You can go to our website and sign up online to receive a complete email version – including our advertisers which make this all possible. Ikewise, our advertisers are included in the iPad and iPhone apps which can be downloaded free of charge at you App Store. Advertisers, call (718) 357-7400, Ext. 132 to be part of the most exciting journalistic effort in the city’s most interesting and vital borough.
Our editorial team has had every phone number, every fact and every comma checked and double-checked. Still, we are certain that our readers will find something less than perfect. Please let us know. We want to print corrections, correct our online edition and update our files for next year’s Blue Book. You can send suggestions or corrections to: bluebook@queenstribune.com, or fax (718-357-9417) or mail them to the Tribune.
Hundreds of people have contributed to this, the Queens Blue Book. It is the culmination of the effort of journalists, artists, salespersons, office staff and friends who have walked through our doors over the past 41 years. The marvelous staff, which has perfected this edition, has earned my gratitude and respect.
Our readers, who throughout the year emailed, faxed and mailed us advice, suggestions, complaints, omissions and errors, and our advertisers, who loyally support our effort because they believe in the Trib and they believe in Queens, are as much a part of our story as anyone else.
There are also my partners: a dozen or so special people - family and friends - who believed in me and in this marvelous product and came up with the funding to enable me and my longtime friend and partner Gary Ackerman — you know the guy — to buy our paper back in 2002 and give it new life and a renewed mission chronicling and advocating for Queens, the most exciting place on Earth. Their commitment has enabled us to grow and explore new and exciting publishing avenues.
And Lil, Allison and Lee, who provide me with the motivation and creative inspiration to help bring what we do at the Trib to a new level each and every year. To all of you, this Blue Book is yours; may it continue to fill your days with Queens information and color.
MSchenkler@Gmail.com
