FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM MARCH 23, 2017 • THE QUEENS COURIER 21 Hundreds gather to mourn BP Marshall BY GINA CONTEH editorial@qns.com @QNS Th ose impacted by the spirit of Helen M. Marshall gathered on Sunday, March 19, to honor the former borough president’s Helen Marshall’s daughter, Agnes, addresses the crowd as the former borough president’s son, Donald, looks on. Columnist Jimmy Breslin, 88, showed his Queens roots every time he typed BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@qns.com @robbpoz Jimmy Breslin grew up in Richmond Hill, started out in the news business as a teenager and became one of New York City’s most beloved journalists with a style that, in many ways, refl ected his Queens upbringing. Breslin, who died on Sunday, March 19, at the age of 88 from complications of pneumonia, wrote his most famous columns telling the stories of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Every column or book Breslin wrote had a unique edge to it, one which Th e New York Times described in its obituary of Breslin on Sunday as that of an “Everyman from Queens” featuring “brick-hard words and a jagged-glass wit.” His writing style evoked an array of emotions from the thousands of people who read his columns in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Daily News, the New York Post and New York Newsday. Breslin grew up in a home in the area of 101st Avenue and 134th Street, as he recalled to Daily News columnist Denis Hamill in a 2013 interview. He would go on to attend John Adams High School in Ozone Park, where he would get some advice from a teacher that would change the course of his life. “I had a history teacher there, McGill. He said I could write a little, but that I had no talent for attendance. He suggested I go see a guy he knew at the Long Island Press on 168th Street and Jamaica Avenue,” Breslin told Hamill. Th e Long Island Press, which at the time was a daily newspaper covering Queens and Long Island, hired him as a copy boy, a worker who shuttled written text from one area of a newspaper to the other. Before long, Breslin said, the Press had him writing stories: “You could go to bars and interview people. Th ey paid you money. I liked it.” In covering the Kennedy assassination, Breslin wrote about Cliff ord Pollard, the man tasked with digging the slain president’s grave, making little more than $3 per hour for the task. Breslin told Hamill he was devastated that Pollard, whom he had written was “one of the last to serve John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” wasn’t permitted to be part of the graveside services. “Th at’s what was wrong with the country,” Breslin was quoted by Hamill as saying. “Still is. Th e working guy isn’t good enough to stand with the big shots.” Breslin went on to note that, aft er fi ling the column and returning to his then home in Forest Hills Gardens, he felt like living there “was like cheating on life”; he spent two days “in Pep McGuire’s bar on Union Turnpike getting stewed.” In the decades that followed, Breslin relocated to Manhattan and bounced from one New York City newsroom to another. From time to time, he’d take occasional leaves to write books, including the famous satire “Th e Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” an organized crime spoof. He also dabbled into politics, pitched Piels beer and Grape Nuts in TV commercials, hosted a short-lived talk show on ABC in the 1980s and even had a prominent role in the 1978 box offi ce bomb, “If Ever I See You Again.” But Breslin was a newsman to his very core — and to the newsroom he returned again and again, writing columns about the average person that defi ned his legacy. While working at the Daily News in 1986, he received the Pulitzer Prize “for columns which consistently champion ordinary citizens.” For many, there could be no greater description of Jimmy Breslin’s life’s work than that. Th is is an edited version of a column that fi rst appeared on QNS.com. Photo via Wikimedia Commons Jimmy Breslin at the Brooklyn Book Festival in 2008. life at the cultural center named in her honor at Queens Borough Hall in Kew Gardens. Marshall died earlier this month at the age of 87. She served three terms as the fi rst African-American and second woman to be elected to the offi ce of Queens borough president. Her career and life in public service of over 40 years was dedicated to improving the lives of her neighbors around Queens. “Most of us here knew Helen for many years. We celebrate her numerous accomplishments and triumphs,” former Mayor David Dinkins said about Marshall. “She touched the lives of more people than she could ever know.” Th is celebration of life encompassed loving stories of the impact Marshall had on community leaders, government offi - cials and those involved in the programs she implemented in Queens. “She just blazed the trail when it came to integration and when it came to equal rights and when it came to making sure her children and children who came aft er them would have the best education that the city could give,” said current Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. Marshall’s dedication to uplift ing the community began long before her involvement in Queens’ government. She was a schoolteacher for eight years and became the fi rst director of the Langston Hughes Library aft er creating it in 1969. Marshall was commended for the work she performed to better the education and facilities for children in Queens. Aft er stints in the State Assembly and City Council, Marshall was elected Queens borough president in 2001. She worked to revamp Queens libraries; Marshall dedicated up to $132 million of her capital and expense money for libraries, specifi cally for children’s programs. Cassandra Wilkins, a student in Queens, said that she remembers all the programs created for children in the libraries of Queens. “Everything was just better,” Wilkins said. “We had so much more to do aft er school and I know without these programs I would not be in college studying to get a degree.” Marshall was also remembered for her passion and commitment toward the people she diligently served in Queens. Her former colleagues recollected on the personal touch Marshall had when it came to helping people around the county. Councilman Barry Grodenchik recalled, “You could not walk down the streets of East Elmhurst without her stopping to talk to every single person on the block.” Former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman added, “Helen, she was diff erent. She was never too busy to talk to people about their problems… She sat there with patience and a generous heart, and tried to fi nd solutions to the problems everyone had.” Many in attendance also thanked Helen Marshall’s family for sharing her with the community. Assemblyman Jeff rion Aubry presented Helen Marshall’s grandsons with a letters from Governor Andrew Cuomo, Councilmen Jumaane Williams and I. Daneek Miller, and Public Advocate Letitia James.
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