42 AUGUST 2, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES 110TH ANNIVERSARY WWW.QNS.COM
GRHEAEAT DPIENOGPLE
Board 5 chair boasts eff orts to improve Greater Ridgewood area
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
Vincent Arcuri, who has served
as chair of Community Board 5
for 12 years, says he and fellow
board members “are like the tribal
leaders” of the community.
“We sit in and council and bring up
the needs of the community. We’re the
basic form of government,” he said.
“We give residents direct contact to
various city agencies and City Council
members.”
“For some people, we’re the only
contact they’ve ever had with government,”
he continued. “And we’re able
to deliver and respond to them and
deliver, on a one on one basis.”
Arcuri said he’s proud of the board’s
record tackling issues that concern
that neighborhoods it serves. These
include transportation, traffic and
public safety concerns.
“We’ve been fortunate enough that
we’ve been fairly accurate about the
needs of the community” he said. “We
Vincent Arcuri (at right) honors police and members of the 104th Precinct Civilian Observation Patrol at a 2010
Community Board 5 meeting
focus on service delivery, and serve
over 150,000 residents in the district.”
In recent years, Arcuri and other
members have noted an influx of
younger residents, particularly in
Ridgewood and Glendale. Many new
bars and nightlife options have opened.
The youth movement can be seen by
walking into places like the Knockdown
Center and Nowadays, he said.
Arcuri has lived in Glendale since
1944, aft er moving to the neighborhood
from Fort Greene. He, and others
of his generation, were inspired
to become more civically involved
in the 1970’s he said, and many have
remained involved since.
“People want to maintain their quality
of life. In the 1970s when the city was almost
bankrupt, we all got involved,” he
said. “It’s about maintaining the quality
of life and keeping it a good place to live.”
For Arcuri, the Ridgewood Times
has been the board’s “anchor” over
the years.
“We have a symbiotic relationship.
At our general meetings we see many
of the reporters that cover the area.
The Ridgewood Times has been there
from day one.”
Turning a letter to the editor into the career of a lifetime
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Drug addicts were destroying
Benninger Playground in
Ridgewood in the 1970s, and
Maureen Walthers — who lived just
around the corner — decided to do
something about it.
She penned a letter to the editor that
wound up in the hands of Ridgewood
Times Publisher Carl Clemens. He was
so moved that he parlayed the letter into
a front-page story in the Ridgewood
Times that brought public attention to
the festering problem.
Walthers would meet Clemens at a
civic meeting, and aft er some conversations,
learned that she was looking
to get back to work aft er spending
years raising her children on Woodbine
Street. He off ered her a part-time
job, three days a week. She jumped at
the opportunity.
“Aft er four or fi ve months, he asked
me, ‘What would you like to do with
the paper?’” Walthers recalled. “I said,
‘I would like to own it.’ It took me 10
years of work, but I fi nally got it.”
In her early years, Walthers worked
as a reporter, and doggedly pursued
every crime and fi re story in the area.
She relished the opportunity to visit
the 104th and 83rd Precincts to get
stories and ride with fi refi ghters into
the streets of Bushwick to battle the
many fi res hitting the neighborhood.
“You really got a feel of what was
Maureen Walthers (second from left) congratulates then-Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro (second from right)
after she was nominated as the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984. Joining them in the photo are former
Community Board 5 District Manager Jane Plankett (far left) and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan (far right).
going on,” she said. “You gained a great
appreciation of the cops and fi refi ghters,
and the work that they did.”
Working with Clemens, Walthers
also helped the Ridgewood Times
advocate for law changes to protect the
Ridgewood housing stock from the same
kind of urban decay Bushwick suff ered
in the 1970s. She also helped to cultivate
a strong relationship with Community
Board 5, one that remains to this day.
Walthers fi nally bought the Ridgewood
Times in 1983, and soon aft er
brought her son, John T. Walthers, on
board full-time. Like his mother, John
had begun at the paper on a part-time
basis, but she convinced him to stay
on board and help the Ridgewood
Times grow.
Over the next 34 years, the mother
and-son Walthers team led the
Ridgewood Times and expanded it
beyond the Greater Ridgewood area.
That expansion was refl ected with
the introduction of the Times Newsweekly
in September 1989, and the
paper continued to emphasize stories
about police and fi re activities, along
with traditional community news
such as board meetings, schools and
sports.
Maureen had hoped to pass the paper
on to John, and for a brief period
in the 2000s, he did become owner the
Ridgewood Times (Maureen remained
on board as publisher). Following his
sudden death in 2014, ownership reverted
back to Maureen, but she felt
that she could no longer take on those
responsibilities. She sold the paper in
2015 to Victoria and Joshua Schneps,
the mother-and-son team behind
Schneps Communications.
Now in retirement, Maureen
Walthers enjoys a quiet life primarily
spent at her seaside home in the
Rockaways, enjoying time with her
family. She still looks back warmly at
her years with the Ridgewood Times
and the connections she made with the
community.
“We had a great little paper, we had
great people working there,” she said,
noting that she’s still a Ridgewood
Times subscriber. “I read the stories
every week, and still look forward
to it.”