22 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 1, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Cops keep offi cer’s memory alive
30 years after murder in Jamaica
BY WILLIAM HARRIS
editorial@qns.com / @QNS
Staying true to its motto fi delis ad
mortem (loyal unto death), the NYPD
honored the memory of Police Offi cer
Edward Byrne 30 years aft er he was murdered
Photo by Robert Stridiron
Police Commissioner James O’Neill along with Deputy Commissioner Lawrence Byrne pay tribute to
Police Offi cer Edward Byrne, who was killed in the line of duty 30 years ago protecting a witness at
the corner of 107th Avenue and Inwood Street in Queens.
Billy Graham’s fi nal crusade was in Queens nearly 13 years ago
BY THE QUEENS COURIER STAFF
editorial@qns.com / @QNS
Reverend Billy Graham, who died on
Feb. 21 at the age of 99, had held back
in Queens what turned out to be his
fi nal public crusade at Flushing Meadows
Corona Park during the summer of 2005.
Graham, considered one of the
world’s best-known evangelists dubbed
“America’s Pastor” among many, died at
his home in Montreat, North Carolina.
He was known for holding revival crusades
throughout the country.
On June 24 through 26, 2005, Graham
held a crusade at Flushing Meadows-
Corona Park; it turned out to be his last.
Th e three-day event drew out over 90,000
New Yorkers of all faiths and denominations.
At the time, Graham was 86 and suffering
from various ailments, including
Parkinson’s disease; he was also confi ned
to a walker due to a pelvic fracture.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in
remembering Graham on Twitter on Feb. 21,
reminded the public that the site of Graham’s
last crusade was “the most diverse county in
the U.S. – fi tting for someone who inspired
so many people all around the world.”
Graham said at the time that the Queens
crusade would be his last in America, but
there was some hope that he would hold
another somewhere else in the globe.
“We hope to come back again someday,”
he told Th e New York Times. “I was
asked in an interview if this was our last
crusade. I said, ‘It probably is – in New
York.’ But I also said, ‘I never say never.’”
Graham is survived by fi ve children
and numerous grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. His wife, Ruth
McCue Bell, passed away in June 2007.
in Jamaica.
Just aft er midnight on Feb. 26, Police
Commissioner James O’Neill and other
high-ranking NYPD members gathered
at the corner of Inwood Street and 107th
Avenue for a vigil remembering Byrne,
who was gunned down while guarding
the home of a witness in a major narcotics
case.
Later that day, police brass and Mayor
Bill de Blasio went to the corner of 91st
Avenue and 168th Street, adjacent to
the 103rd Precinct stationhouse where
Byrne had been assigned, for a ceremony
renaming the intersection in Byrne’s
honor.
At around 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 26, 1988,
four men approached Byrne as he sat in
a patrol car while guarding the witness’s
home. Byrne was shot multiple times and
killed. His killing sparked a wide array of
anger in Queens, and the city intensifi ed
its eff orts to fi ght violent crime. Th e four
suspects were caught a week aft er Byrne’s
killing and later convicted.
Th e mission is personal for the Byrne
family. Offi cer Byrne had followed his
father in the line of duty, who was a member
of the NYPD for 22 years. Edward’s
older brother, Lawrence, also joined the
force aft er a long career as an attorney
and later became deputy commissioner
of the NYPD.
Th irty years since Byrne’s murder,
police offi cials noted, the city’s a far safer
place: Homicides are signifi cantly lower
today than they were over the last three
decades. In 1990, there were a total of
2,245 homicides. In 2017, just 292 homicides
were reported.
“Th at was a wakeup call for this whole
city that it was time. It was time to no longer
accept the violence that was so prevalent
in New York City back in the ’70s and
the ’80s,” O’Neill said.
In renaming the intersection for Byrne,
de Blasio noted that the NYPD and the
city alike have “a tremendous ability to
remember its heroes.”
“We do that because we want to keep
everything they stood for alive, we want
to remember them as part of our commitment
to their families, we want to remember
them because they inspire us to something
greater,” he said. “All of that can be
said of Eddie Byrne whose life spoke so
powerfully to us and whose death became
a clarion call for change in this city.”
George Kaufman,
89, revitalized
studios in Astoria
George Kaufman, the real estate
developer who helped inject new life
into the Astoria Studios that now bear
his name, died on Feb. 20, less than a
month shy of his 90th birthday.
Kaufman served as chairman of the
Kaufman Organization and Kaufman
Astoria Studios, one of the city’s biggest
media and entertainment hubs.
Th e studios had been closed for a
decade before Kaufman reopened
them and began reviving production
there.
Th e studios became the foundation
of the Kaufman Arts District, the fi rst
district of its kind in Queens, and the
hub of a new neighborhood straddling
the Astoria/Long Island City border.
“George was so much more than a
real estate developer. He understood
deep in his bones the importance of
investing in New York’s communities
because they are the very foundation
of the city’s greatness,” said
Hal Rosenbluth, president and CEO
of Kaufman Astoria Studios, and one
of Kaufman’s long-time friends. “He
was a visionary who saw the promise
of fi lm and television production work
in New York long before it became an
integral part of the city’s economy.”
As chair of the Kaufman
Organization, he grew the three-generation,
family-owned and operated real
estate company into one of the city’s
biggest independent real estate companies.
He worked to achieve sustainable
growth in each neighborhood where
his properties were located.
Outside of industry, Kaufman was
an active member of the Real Estate
Board of New York and served on the
boards of numerous civic and philanthropic
organizations. Th ey include
Th e Whitney Museum, the Fashion
Institute of Technology, Exploring the
Arts and the Museum of the Moving
Image, also located in the Kaufman
Arts District. He was also the founding
chairman of the Fashion Center BID.
A veteran of the Korean War,
Kaufman earned his undergraduate
degree from Ohio State University and
his master’s degree from New York
University. He resided in New York
with his wife, Mariana. In addition to
his wife, he is survived by his daughter
Cynthia.
Services were off ered on Monday,
Feb. 26, at Temple Emanu-El in
Manhattan.
Queens Courier staff
File photo/THE COURIER