By Dee Richard
Good friend and 109th Precinct Officer Tom Brophy’s surgery went well and he has been healing nicely.
He is now undergoing aggressive chemotherapy to help him in his fight against his disease. To assist him and his family, the 109th Precinct is holding a raffle. The winning tickets will be picked on April 8. First prize will be $2,000; Second prize will be $1,000; and third prize will be $500.
Tickets are $20 each and can be purchased at the 109th Precinct from Lt. Forgione or Sgt. Beneventi. Checks should be made out to the Tom Brophy Fund. Help Tom with his fight against cancer.
On Feb. 20 the 109th Precinct held a get-together for Tommy, his family and his friends. Queens North Borough Commander Assistant Chief James Tuller and Tom’s commanding officer, Thomas Cea, as well as a cadre of police officers from the 109th turned out to show their support.
Afterward the Chinese and Taiwanese Business associations treated Tommy and his group to a dinner at the Maxin Café in Flushing. Some of the businessman presented Tommy with generous checks to help him defray some of his astronomical expenses.
Among the business men who donated were Peter Tu, Timothy Chueng, Raymond Chen, Jimmy Meng, Misa Chang, Ren Tai Tsai, Wu Hsing Liao, Jia Ying Wang, Peter Koo, Fong Mei Tan, I Ming Mao and Michael Lee.
Tommy and his family would like to thank these men from the bottoms of their hearts for their generosity.
Happy 80th birthday to Gabe Pressman and Barney Confessore, who have been members of the New York Press Club for more than 40 years. I hope the next 40 are just as much fun.
Congratulations to Kathryn Dubowski of Jamaica Estates. She attends Townsend Harris High School and was named Athlete of the Week and appeared on NY 1 for an interview. She also received a scholarship to be used at a college of her choice. She has varsity letters in track, soccer and basketball. Keep up the good work, Kathryn.
At their February meeting at the Reception House, the Americans of Italian Heritage held their swearing in of new officers for 2004. Judge Cosmo DiTucci performed the honors with a little help from state Sen. Frank Padavan. The new officers are Nancy Barone, Joan Benfatto, Phil Ragusa, Marie Warhola and Patricia Battista. Congratulations to all.
Detective Frank Seabrook of the 109th Precinct Community Affairs unit is retiring in early April after 20 years of service to the NYPD. He has spent his entire career in the 109th. We will fill you in with more details on Frank later on, as I am sure they will have some sort of retirement party or other form of acknowledgement for his many years of dedicated service to the Flushing community.
The Chinese-American Voters Action 2004 group is conducting a get-out-the-vote drive. The group’s primary purpose is to strengthen the political powers of Chinese-American voters and promote the political stance and rights drawing in early October. The grand prize will be a Zenith plasma TV worth more than $3,000, and numerous secondary prizes will be announced shortly. For additional information, please call 718-316-0308.
Former Public Advocate Mark Green held a book signing and discussion at the Barnes and Nobel book store in Bay Terrace. All the seats were filled, but not everyone stayed for the full presentation, including Assemblyman Mark Weprin, who did not stay long enough for a photo-op.
Either he was not particularly interested in the subject or he had another event to attend. If that were the case, we could have taken photos in advance of the program with Green signing a book for him. After all, that is what a book signing is all about. Better luck next time.
I attended three large events this week: the Queens County Democratic Organization’s party at Antuns, the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade dinner-dance at Terrace on the Park and the Winter Gay Pride dinner-dance at Astoria World Manor.
There is much to tell you about these three star-studded events, but it will have to wait until next week’s column as this computer insists on acting up. It alternates between freezing up and starting new sentences in the middle of paragraphs to the point where I will be signing off at this time as I am already late for the deadline and can’t deal with much more of this.
Don’t forget to check out the photos on the Focus on Queens page. Keep sending all your interesting tidbits on gossip, events and invitations. As usual, you may contact me by voice mail at 718-767-6484, fax at 718-746-0066 or e-mail at deerrichard@aol.com.
Till next week,
Dee
