The Queens Courier is celebrating its 23rd anniversary of serving a diverse population and bringing award-winning grass-roots news coverage to the community.
When first founded by Victoria Schneps in her living room in 1985, it was just one newspaper serving Bayside, Whitestone and College Point. However, over the years The Queens Courier has grown to include four editions covering all of the communities in the borough. In addition to The Queens Couriers, Schneps now also publishes The Courier Sun, El Correo de Queens, Queens Business Today, Queensborough magazine, Healthwise magazine, the North Shore Towers Courier and Key to Queens.
Within the last several months, The Queens Courier has launched two additional publications, the LeHavre Courier and Aspire College Magazine.
The Queens Courier is also serving the community through its award-winning web site, qns.com. The heavily traveled site is updated daily with content and now includes originally produced videos. The site also allows visitors to post comments on stories, upload their own photos, events and much more. During the 2007 Better Newspaper Contest, the New York Press Association awarded the web site with first place for “Best Newspaper Website” and first place for “Best Use of Multi-Media.”
The paper was also given awards for its editorial excellence during the 2007 Better Newspaper Contest, solidifying its position as the leading source of news in Queens. Among the accolades were first place honors for community leadership for The Queens Courier series “Ghost Workers” and recognition for spot news coverage for the pieces on the St. John’s gunman. It also won other awards for news, photography and design.
“We’ve been breaking the news – and making the news – for 23 years,” said Victoria Schneps-Yunis. “Our company has grown to be the pre-eminent source of news in the borough of Queens. No one provides more local news content, covering our international borough. Through our web site, we have become a daily news organization with a weekly print newspaper.”
Each year The Queens Courier also sponsors the Top Women in Business event, which recognizes the contributions of some of the borough’s prominent women, and a Health Expo. For the first time, this year it recognized men in the business world during the October 2 “King of Queens” A Champions Breakfast Awards and Networking Event.
The Queens Courier and El Correo de Queens, a Spanish-language community newspaper, also sponsor the Miss Chiquitita Pageant. The top prizes of this event include a four-year CUNY scholarship and two-year scholarship to Plaza College.
The Queens Courier remains dedicated to informing the community about the issues that they find important while also recognizing the achievements of those throughout the borough. The publication also continues to follow its motto “We’re all about you.”
We are featuring 23 “Stars” of Queens, people who were born here or lived here, who have made us laugh, sing and significantly contributed to our world.
Nancy Davis Reagan
Nancy Reagan was born Nancy Davis in Flushing, Queens on July 6, 1921. Prior to marrying former President Reagan, Nancy Davis accepted a contract from Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios and moved to Hollywood, California, where she appeared in 11 films.
During Ronald Reagan’s two terms as California Governor, Nancy Reagan adopted several causes, including the welfare of returned and wounded Vietnam War veterans and fundraising and lobbying efforts on behalf of those Vietnam War service members who were either prisoners of war or missing in action.
As California’s First Lady, she wrote a syndicated column and donated her salary to the National League of Families of American POW-MIA. She also regularly visited state institutions that cared for the elderly and physically and emotionally handicapped children.
After observing a program that successfully brought these groups together as a form of therapy, the “Foster Grandparent Program,” she promoted it throughout California and, eventually, the nation. She also redecorated the White House’s family quarters using over $822,000 in private donation funds within 60 days as the First Lady.
John McEnroe
John McEnroe was born on an American Air Force base in Wiesbaden, Germany on February 16, 1959. When less than a year old, his family moved to New York. He grew up in Douglaston, Queens and learned tennis at the nearby Port Washington Tennis Academy on Long Island.
Among many reasons for his celebrity was his well known on-court behavior, which often landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities. McEnroe holds numerous titles in the Wimbledon singles and the U.S. Open.
He was the top ranked player on 14 separate occasions between 1980 and 1985 and finished the year ranked World No. 1 four straight years from 1981 through 1984. He spent a total of 170 weeks at the top of the rankings.
McEnroe was also ranked the World No. 1 in doubles for a record 257 weeks. In the Davis Cup, concentrated on men’s international tennis, McEnroe won two singles rubbers in the final in 1978 as the U.S. captured the cup for the first time since 1972, beating the United Kingdom in the final.
John Gotti, Jr.
Born on October 27, 1940, John Gotti, commonly known by the media as “The Dapper Don” and “The Teflon Don” after the murder of his former boss Paul Castellano, was the boss of the Gambino crime family, one of the Five Families in New York City. In 1992, the often indicted but never convicted Gotti was finally convicted of racketeering, 13 murders, obstruction of justice, hijacking, illegal gambling, extortion, tax evasion, loan sharking, conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison where he died of throat cancer. He lived in Howard Beach and regularly frequented the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park.
Judge Anthony Scalia
He was born on March 11, 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey. When he was five-years-old, Scalia and his family moved to Elmhurst, Queens, during which time his father worked at Brooklyn College in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He started his education at PS 13, then attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, graduated from Georgetown College in Washington, and ultimately studied law at Harvard.
Scalia began his legal career at Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked from 1961 to 1967, before becoming a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia in 1967.
In 1971, he entered public service, working as the general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy, under President Richard Nixon, where one of his principal assignments was to formulate Federal policy for the growth of cable television. He also suggested policy, which would give the White House more influence over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ranging from well-chosen appointees to the Board of Directors to giving more power to local stations instead of the national organization. Scalia is sometimes referred to by the nickname “Nino.”
Ella Fitzgerald
Born in Newport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald had moved to New York where she lived at 179-07 Braddock Ave., in Addisleigh Park, Queens. Over a recording career that lasted 57 years, she was the winner of 14 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
She won her first prize at The Apollo Theater in 1934 and had her first hit, “A Tisket a Tasket” in 1938. There is a statue of Fitzgerald in Yonkers, where she grew up. It is located south of the main entrance to the Amtrak/Metro-North Railroad station.
On January 10, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that Fitzgerald would be honored with her own 39-cent postage stamp, which was released in April 2007; the stamp was part of the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. She died on June 15, 1996.
50 Cent
Hailing from South Jamaica Queens, 50 Cent was born on July 6, 1975. After releasing his album, “Guess Who’s Back?” in 2002, 50 Cent’s big break came when was discovered by rapper Eminem and signed to Universal Music Group’s Shady Records and Aftermath Entertainment.
He hit it big in 2003 with his album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” Later that year, he founded G-Unit Records. In 2005, he released his multimillion selling follow up, “The Massacre” and starred in his semi-autobiographical movie, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”
He has also appeared in three other films and will appear in three upcoming films. “Fitty,” as he is commonly known, often mentions Jamaica and Queens in his songs.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. While attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he began performing folk and country songs at local caf/s, taking the name “Bob Dylan,” after the late Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college and moved to New York, where his idol, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, was hospitalized. He lived near Queens College off 150th Street.
In the fall of 1961, after one of his performances received a rave review in The New York Times, Dylan signed a recording contract with Columbia Records. Among his accomplishments, Dylan has recorded 32 studio albums, including four that ranked number one on the Billboard 200, has appeared on 14 compilations and has recorded 13 live albums.
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola, born on April 7, 1939, is a five-time Academy Award-winning American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Coppola is also a vintner, magazine publisher, and hotelier. He is a graduate of Hofstra University where he studied theatre. He earned an M.F.A. in film directing from the UCLA Film School.
His company, Francis Ford Coppola Presents, owns a winery in Geyserville, Sonoma County, California. The company also produces a line of pastas and pasta sauces, and it owns several cafes and resorts.
In 1989, Coppola teamed up with fellow Oscar-winning directors Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen for an anthology film called New York Stories. Coppola has helped produce more than 60 films, directed more than 30 films, and has written for more than 25 films and has appeared in numerous films and other on-screen events. According to Coppola, “the essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy,” he said.
Fran Drescher
Born in Flushing, Queens on September 30, 1957, she is an Emmy award and Golden Globe nominated American film and television actor and comedian. She is famous for her nasal voice, laugh, widow’s peak hairline, and exaggerated Queens accent.
She grew up in Kew Gardens and attended Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens, where she met her future husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, eventually marrying him in 1978, at age 21.
Drescher has appeared in more than 50 movies and TV episodes, has executively produced several films, written for numerous TV series episodes and has directed four TV series episodes.
On June 21, 2007, the day which marks her 7th anniversary of wellness, Drescher announced the national launch of the “Cancer Schmancer Movement,” a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women’s cancers be diagnosed while in stage one, the most curable stage.
Rodney Dangerfield
Born Jacob Cohen on November 21, 1921 in Babylon, Long Island, this nightclub impresario and TV and film comedian started out at P.S. 99. He was best known for the catchphrase “I don’t get no respect.”
He took the name Rodney Dangerfield, which had been used as a comical name by Jack Benny and later by Ricky Nelson. Comedy Central aired a special titled Legends: Rodney Dangerfield on September 10, 2006, which commemorated his life and legacy. The Northern Irish rock band, The Dangerfields, are named in tribute to him. Impressed by Dangerfield’s role in Caddyshack, Europet’s design manager Allen Shuemaker brought forth the idea of creating a line of animal chew toys modeled after the comedian.
In 2007, it was reported that a Rodney Dangerfield tattoo is among the most popular celebrity tattoos in the United States, generally by people in their late 20s or early 30s who got the tattoo in the 1990s. He died on October 5, 2004.
Charles ‘Honi’ Coles
Born on August 2, 1911 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Coles was an actor and tap dancer who traveled to New York City as one of the Three Millers. Greatly inspired by Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Coles in turn inspired Gregory Hines.
He later headlined at the Apollo Theater. Coles made his Broadway debut in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” in 1949. He also won a Tony award in 1982 for his role in the Broadway musical, “My One and Only.”
During the 1980s, Coles taught dance and dance history at Yale, Cornell, Duke, and George Washington University. Living at 24-40 94th Street in Elmhurst, Queens, he died on November 12, 1992.
Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence, Louis Armstrong has been described by critics as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Born to poor parents in New Orleans, Armstrong delivered newspapers, hauled coal and frequented the back alley music scene as a boy.
During his later years as a well known musician he didn’t reflect on his upbringing as a crutch but rather an influence. In his youth, he played in marching bands and on riverboats before breaking in, with King Oliver, as second trumpet, in 1922. After spending time in Chicago, Armstrong was invited to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra which was the top African-American band of the day. The 1930’s was hard on the jazz scene and many bands fell to the wayside which prompted Armstrong to move to Los Angeles where people could still afford the night life of jazz music.
After many years of touring and becoming the U.S. ambassador of jazz to the world as a musician, bandleader and film star, Armstrong finally settled in 1943 in Queens with his fourth wife, Lucille.
Nicknamed “Satchmo” or “Satchel Mouth” by his youthful peers for the way his face looked upon playing the trumpet, Armstrong tried to bring jazz to those who cared little for music.
On July 6, 1971 at the age of 69, Armstrong died of a heart attack in Corona and was buried in Flushing Cemetery. His widow, Lucille, remained active in Queens community affairs.
The Armstrong House, a museum aimed at preserving the legacy of the jazz great, was opened on October 15, 2003. It offers 40-minute guided tours of the house beginning every hour on the hour. For more information or to make reservations, call 718-478-8274.
Burt Bacharach
Creator of some of the world’s favorite songs, Burt Bacharach is one of the most accomplished composers of the 20th century. In 1932, Bacharach’s family moved to Kew Gardens in Queens.
Graduating from Forest Hills High School, Bacharach went on to study at McGill University in Montreal, the Mannes school of Music and the Berkshire Music Center at the New School for social research.
Bacharach worked on projects with the Drifters, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and B.J. Thomas. In 1996, Bacharach was the subject of a BBC documentary, Burt Bacharach – This Is Now.
Ellen Baker
Astronaut Ellen Baker is the daughter of former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman and is one of NASA’s brightest lights. She attended Bayside High School and then went on to graduate from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974.
From there she received a doctorate of medicine from Cornell University, masters in Public Health from the University of Texas school of Public Health, and after her residency joined NASA as a medical officer at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
In 1984, NASA selected Dr. Baker for the astronauts program and since then she has become a veteran of three space flights and has logged over 686 hours in space.
Her daughter, Meredith Baker, writes the Tuned-In Teen column for the Kidz Section for The Queens Courier.
William ‘Count’ Basie
William “Count” Basie and wife Catherine lived at 174-27 Adelaide Road, Addisleigh Park, between the early 1940’s and 1982. They entertained legions of St. Albans youth by allowing them to swim in their backyard pool.
Basie was a famed composer and organizer of big jazz bands. The Basie neighbors in southeast Queens included the Mills Brothers, Lena Horne, Mercer Ellington, Brook Benton, Billie Holiday, and trumpeter Cootie Williams.
Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. He was regarded along with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his time.
Basie breathed life into swing and jazz music during the 1930’s and ’40s. Count Basie died in Hollywood, Florida on April 26, 1984 and the age of 79.
Harry Belafonte
Singer, actor and humanitarian extraordinaire, he lived in East Elmhurst in the 1950’s. Harry Belafonte was born in Harlem, New York, attended George Washington High School and joined the Navy during World War II.
Belafonte was the first African-American man to win an Emmy for his first TV special “Tonight with Belafonte.” Belafonte has starred in several films such as “Odds Against Tomorrow,” “Island in the Sun” and “The World, the Flesh and the Devil.”
He has been a political activist and humanitarian. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy named Belafonte as the cultural advisor to the Peace Corps. He was a supporter of the civil rights movement and one of Martin Luther King’s confidants.
In 2004 Belafonte received the Humanitarian Award at the 2006 BET Awards.
Tony Bennett
Born in Astoria on August 3, 1926, singer Tony Bennett rocketed to fame with his famous tune “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” He dedicated a CD to his old neighborhood, naming it Astoria. Bennett achieved artistic and commercial success throughout the 1950’s and into the early ’60s.
But due to the rise of Rock and Roll music his career slowed until the 1980’s. From small cafes to MTV’s Unplugged, Bennett is well known for his top hits “Fly Me to the Moon,” I’ve Got the World on a String” and “The Best is Yet to Come.”
Bennett has sold over 50 million records worldwide during his career and has been inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
Irving Berlin
One of the leading lights of the musical theater, Irving Berlin penned some of America’s best loved songs including “God Bless America,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Belarus, his family moved to New York in 1893.
During the economic hardships of the early 1900’s, Berlin had to sell newspapers on the street while also working as a singing waiter at Pelham’s Caf/ in Chinatown. He was asked to write a song with the caf/’s pianist. Though the pay was only 37 cents it launched him into his career as a lyricist and then into a composer.
This new career gave him a new name due to a misprint, and Israel Beilin became Irving Berlin. Berlin had a deep sense of patriotism and during World War II he created songs, such as “Any Bonds Today?” He toured the British Isles, North Africa, Italy, the Middle East, and the Pacific in order to uplift morale among the troops.
Before moving to Manhattan, he lived near Crocheron Park in Bayside. Berlin was awarded the medal of merit by President Truman. In 1968, Berlin was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He lived to be 101.
John Bowne
One of the most significant citizens in the history of Queens, John Bowne permitted a religious group – the Quakers – to worship in the kitchen of his Flushing home in defiance of a ban by Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Netherlands.
Born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England in 1627, Bowne emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1648. Bowne became a merchant and married Hannah Feake. In 1661, Bowne and his bride moved to Flushing, because of the new doctrine of Quakerism, which was being practiced throughout the area.
After the signing of the “Flushing Remonstrance” in 1657, which declared the town open to all faiths, Bowne was arrested and sent by boat into exile in Europe. He worked his way from Ireland to Holland where he argued his case for religious freedom to the Dutch West India Company, which agreed with him and freed him to return to the New World.
His struggle was the crucial test that established religious freedom in America. His house still stands today as a National Shrine to Religious Freedom on a street which bears his name. John Bowne High School is also named in his honor.
Jimmy Breslin
Born in Jamaica, New York, Jimmy Breslin has been a journalist, novelist and playwright for over 40 years. From the death of JFK, the Watergate scandal and the brutal killing spree in 1977 spawned by the Son of Sam, Breslin has added real grit to the world of journalism.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author lived in Forest Hills most of his life and based many of his columns and novels upon Queens locals. He ran for President of the City Council in 1969 and aligned himself on a ticket with author Norman Mailer who was running for mayor. Both campaigns ended in defeat. In 1985, he received a George Polk award for metropolitan reporting and in 1986 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary while working at the New York Daily News.
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens to photojournalist Sylvia Plachy and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for his performance in “The Pianist.”
He replaced Richard Dreyfuss at 29 as the youngest actor to ever win the Best Actor Academy Award. He is the only actor to win Best Actor Oscar when nominated alongside four previous Oscar winners. As a child growing up in Queens, Brody performed magic shows at children’s birthday parties as “The Amazing Adrien.”
Carroll O’Connor
Much-loved TV character playing an obstreperous bigot from Queens on “All in the Family,” Carroll O’ Connor spent much of his youth in Elmhurst and Forest Hills. Later he would end up playing the character Archie Bunker whose political views, though racist and inflexible, resonated with the public.
O’Connor acted in film roles such as “Lonely Are the Brave,” “Cleopatra,” “In Harms Way,” “Hawaii,” and “Kelly’s Hero’s” but his role as Archie Bunker in “All in the Family” defined him as one of the great character actors of his time. He died after suffering a heart attack on June 21, 2001 due to complications from diabetes in Culver City, California.
Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York in 1922. He starred in several movies including “Silent Movie,” “History of the World,” and as Coach Calhoun in “Grease.”
In 1997, he appeared in “National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation” and the “Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.”
In 1987, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy and has a star on the Walk of Fame. Caesar commuted from the Rego Park during the era when he dominated television comedy in the acclaimed “Your Show of Shows.”
Roy Campanella
Nicknamed “Campy,” Roy Campanella was born in Philadelphia in 1921. This Brooklyn Dodger All-Star catcher went from the Baltimore Elite Giants in the Negro National League to being the first black player (along with Don Newcombe) in a major league farm system within the United States at the Dodgers’ Nashua, New Hampshire farm team. He rose to the major league Brooklyn Dodgers, where he was the National League’s Most Valuable Player (1951, 1953, and 1955).
He entered baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1969. Living at 114-10 179th Street, Campanella attended the nearby wedding of Joe Louis to Rose Morgan in 1955.
