16 THE QUEENS COURIER • 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW • DECEMBER 24, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
2020 year in review
Queens mourns loss of prominent fi gures
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
While 2020 was fi lled with loss amid the
COVID-19 pandemic, Queens said goodbye
to several prominent fi gures throughout
the year.
From a former borough president, to
a dynamic political icon, to a sports legend
with Queens roots, the list of those
who passed away in 2020 includes some
big names.
Claire Shulman
Queens lost a towering fi gure in 2020
when Claire Shulman, the fi rst woman to
serve as Queens borough president, died
in August at the age of 94 aft er battling
lung and pancreatic cancer.
In her 16 years in offi ce, Shulman
changed the way Queens ran its government
following the Donald Manes scandal
at Borough Hall in 1986 and ushered
the borough into an era of unprecedented
growth and economic revitalization.
Once a registered nurse during World
War II, Shulman became president of the
Bayside Mothers Club and oversaw the
renovation of her children’s school and
was named by Manes as his director of
community boards in 1972, becoming his
deputy in 1980 before replacing him by a
unanimous City Council vote in 1986.
Shulman’s style of government depended
on her leadership and the strength of her
staff which featured future leaders such as
former Assemblywoman Marge Markey,
current Queens District Attorney Melinda
Katz and Councilman Barry Grodenchik.
“Claire stepped into the breach in 1986
and quickly righted the ship of state, giving
the people of Queens the best government
they ever had,” Grodenchik recalled.
“Her legacy of service is beyond measure
but includes tens of thousands of
new school seats, a new Queens Hospital
Center, Queens Th eatre, Queens Zoo,
USTA National Tennis Center, Museum
of the Moving Image, Queens Botanical
Garden, Queens Museum, Jamaica Center
for the Arts and Learning, new terminals
at JFK Airport, saving the homes
of 20,000 families during the co-op and
condo crisis of the late 1980s, the New
York Times printing plant, Arverne by
the Sea, a new civil and criminal court
building, restored Unisphere, SAGE (the
fi rst LGBT senior center in Queens, Louis
Armstrong House, Th alia Spanish Th eatre,
FDA regional laboratory at York College,
Queens West, countless local parks, playgrounds
and libraries either rebuilt or built
anew, Townsend Harris High School and a
new 107th Precinct.”
Looking back on her track record,
Shulman said luring the fi lm industry to
western Queens was one of her greatest
accomplishments.
“We got the 5 1/2 acres from the federal
government for $1,” she said in a 2014
interview regarding the founding of the
Kaufman Astoria Studios. “From zero dollars
to $9 billion is not bad at all.”
Shulman worked until her final days as president
of the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local
Development Corp. which oversaw the Special
Flushing Waterfront District.
Archie Spigner
Queens lost another dynamic political
icon in 2020 when Archie Spigner died at
92 in October. Known as “the godfather
of politics,” Spigner represented southeast
Queens as a longtime councilman and distinct
leader.
State Senator Leroy Comrie called
Spigner a “transformative fi gure in civics,
Philip Kahn
Whitey Ford Luke Gasparre
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