CLAIRE SHULMAN ▶A CAREER OF SERVICE Claire Shulman at 90: Celebrating a life in service to Queens BY THE QUEENS COURIER STAFF Former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman left office on December 31, 2001 after nearly 16 years of tremendous achievement in Queens. At the inauguration of her successor, Helen Marshall, Shulman remarked, “It’s hard to get used to being unemployed.” Needless to say, Shulman wouldn’t be away from the public eye for very long. Last month, Shulman celebrated her 90th birthday-- and defying her age, she’s as active as ever in working to make Queens a better place to live, to grow a business and to raise a family. Shulman is presently the CEO of the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corporation. The organization has been directly involved in the city’s ongoing efforts to transform Willets Point from an industrial wasteland into a combined residential and retail community. She is also advocating for the Flushing West rezoning and renovations to the Flushing-Main Street Long Island Rail Road station. “It is a marvelous improvement in downtown Flushing, and will relieve the No. 7 train to a great degree,” Shulman said last year of the Flushing-Main Street project. But it is her years of service as the borough president which defined Shulman as one of the greatest power brokers Queens has ever known. In her tenure, she secured hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements across the World’s Borough-- from new schools to cultural institutions, from transit hubs to public libraries. Current Borough President Melinda Katz, who at one time served Shulman as director of community boards, lauded her former boss as “an extraordinary public servant who taught me how to get things done.” “Throughout her distinguished tenure, she was masterful in making sure government served as an effective tool for the people of Queens and for achieving the positive change that has made our borough such an attractive place to live, work and visit,” Katz said. Shulman first moved to Queens in 1942. While working as a nurse at Queens Hospital, she met the man who would become her husband and love of her life, Dr. Mel Shulman. The couple had three children and five grandchildren. She arrived on the political scene (continued on page 6)
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