The Long Island City Post Office is now named after Geraldine Ferraro, who joined former colleagues, current elected officials and community leaders at a ceremony dedicating the “Geraldine Ferraro Post Office Building” on Thursday, August 26.
“I’m hoping that in the future when young people look up at my name and ask who is she, and someone says oh she was a member of Congress that they might be curious about the institution that I so loved and what it does to make America great,” said Ferraro, after she unveiled the plaque that will sit in the newly renamed post office.
When Ferraro, a three-term Congressmember who represented Forest Hills from 1978 through 1984, was first elected, she requested to sit on the post office and Civil Service Committee – not one of the most-requested committees in the House.
However, one of the major issues affecting the communities she served at that time was trying to get a new zip code. Ferraro went the U.S. Postmaster General shortly after getting elected who told her she needed to get 50,000 signatures in order for it to be considered. Sure enough, she acquired the signatures and the community received a new zip code.
“I became the Queens of Queens,” Ferraro said.
Although Ferraro was well-known in Queens prior to 1984, she became recognizable across the country when Democratic nominee for President Walter Mondale tapped her as his Vice Presidential nominee. Ferraro became the first female Vice President nominee for a major party in U.S. history.
The renaming of the Post Office, which came on Ferraro’s 75th birthday and the 90th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in America, was set in motion Queens Congressmember Carolyn Maloney and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who introduced the legislation in their respective houses. President Barack Obama signed the legislation into law in August 2009.
“Geraldine Ferraro didn’t just make history, she shaped it,” Maloney said. “She is our champion and our heroine.”
