WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MARCH 10, 2022 25
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
helped to set the stage for Kamala Harris
established the Queens DA’s Special
Victims Unit, a group of prosecutors
focused on victims of heinous off enses
such as sexual abuse, child abuse and
domestic violence.
In 1978, Ferraro jumped fully
into the political world by running for
Congress. Using the campaign slogan,
“Finally, a tough Democrat,” she won
over voters in a rather conservative
district at the time and was elected to
Capitol Hill.
One of her assignments in the House
of Representatives was to the Post Offi
ce Committee. It was there that she
worked with the U.S. Postal Service
on establishing a Queens-based ZIP
code of 11385 for the communities of
Ridgewood and Glendale.
Previously, the Ridgewood/Glendale
area had the Brooklyn-based
ZIP code of 11227, which negatively
impacted home and auto insurance
premiums in the community at the
time. Ferraro saw to it that the area
was moved into a Flushing-based ZIP
code, which more appropriately
aligned with the communities’ Queens
identity.
MAKING HER RUN
Ferraro gained infl uence within the
Democratic Party on both the local
and national stages. She gained the favor
of then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill,
the party’s most powerful elected offi
cial in the Reagan era, and Ferraro
eventually became chairperson of the
Democratic Platform Committee.
Aft er Mondale won the presidential
nomination in 1984, he indicated a
desire to nominate a female running
mate. Ferraro was one of several choices
under consideration, and though
only in Congress for three terms, she
jumped at the opportunity to make an
historic national campaign.
In the summer of 1984, Ferraro formally
accepted the Democratic Party’s
vice presidential nomination at the
Democratic National Convention in
San Francisco. She gave a rousing
speech in which she announced that
the part “sent a powerful signal to all
Americans.”
“There are no doors we cannot
unlock. We will place no limits on
achievement,” she said. “If we can do
this, we can do anything.”
Even though the Mondale/Ferraro
ticket was unsuccessful in their historic
bid, Ferraro’s convention remarks
did prove prophetic in a sense.
In the years that followed, Americans
elected more women to the halls of
Congress and to governor’s mansions
across the nation.
Ferraro herself, however, never
got back to Capitol Hill. She made two
failed runs at the U.S. Senate in 1992
and 1998, and served in the Clinton
administration as U.S. ambassador to
the U.N. Convention on Human Rights
in Geneva.
Ferraro died in March 2011 at the
age of 75 from complications of multiple
myeloma.
It would take a full 24 years aft er
Ferraro’s vice presidential run before
another woman got a chance at a
White House run. That happened in
2008, when Republican presidential
nominee, Arizona Senator John Mc-
Cain, selected Alaska Governor Sarah
Palin as his running mate.
Eight years later, in 2016, former
Secretary of State and New York Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton became
the fi rst female presidential nominee
of a major American political party.
She received more than 65 million
votes nationwide, but lost the electoral
vote to Donald Trump.
Now, Harris is the nation’s first
female vice president. No American
woman has soared to such heights —
and, as the vice president said in her
victory speech, she won’t be the last
to do so.
Without question, we imagine that
Ferraro would be quite proud.
Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro on the campaign trail in 1984 as the Democratic Party’s vice presidential
nominee. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Ferraro (second from right) celebrates her vice presidential nomination in 1984 with a contingent of prominent
Queens women: Community Board 5 District Manager Jane Planken, Ridgewood Times editor and later
publisher Maureen Walthers and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan. Ridgewood Times archives
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