2 SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Maureen Walthers, 86, former owner
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
RPOZARYCKI@QNS.COM
@ROBBPOZ
The former long-time owner and
publisher of the Ridgewood
Times and Times Newsweekly,
Maureen Walthers, died on Aug. 30
aft er a brief illness. She was 86.
Walthers was a housewife living
on Woodbine Street in Ridgewood in
the 1970s when she penned a letter
to the editor of the Ridgewood Times
over the rampant use of drugs at a
playground a block away.
The letter impressed the paper’s
then-publisher, Carl Clemons, that he
off ered to bring Walthers on board
as a writer. That began a fi ve-decade
association with the weekly newspaper
covering the Greater Ridgewood
area (Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth
and Middle Village), and aft er becoming
its owner, Walthers would
oversee its expansion to other areas
of Queens.
Beginning her writing career on a
part-time basis, writing stories three
days a week, Clemons approached her
with a question about her future.
“Aft er four or fi ve months, he asked
me, ‘What would you like to do with
the paper?’” Walthers recalled in a
2018 interview with the Ridgewood
Times. “I said, ‘I would like to own
it.’ It took me 10 years of work, but I
fi nally got it.”
As she worked her way toward
ownership, Walthers was on the
Maureen Walthers and the Ridgewood Times staff sitting on a memorial bench in Roxbury that Walthers had
made for her son, Johnny.
front lines covering the civic scene
in Ridgewood and neighboring Bushwick,
Brooklyn, during the 1970s. She
would ride along with police offi cers
and fi refi ghters as they responded to
emergencies in both communities.
Walthers and Clemons, along with
Monsignor James Kelly of St. Brigid
Church in Brooklyn, chronicled the
rampant urban decay in Bushwick
an award-winning seven-part series,
“The Agony of Bushwick,” published
in the Ridgewood Times in the
summer and fall of 1977. The series
brought further public awareness
of the community’s woes, and action
from the city to reverse the decline.
Walthers also became involved
in various local causes during her
tenure. She was one of the founding
members of the Greater Ridgewood
Historical Society and took an active
role in helping to preserve
and landmark the Onderdonk
House, a colonial farmhouse on
Flushing Avenue.
She was also an active member
of Queens Community Board 5 for
many years, and served for a time as
the chair of its Public Safety Committee.
Walthers was also involved with
the Greater Ridgewood Restoration
Corporation, which promotes the
preservation of the neighborhood’s
housing stock.
In 1981, Walthers became the
Ridgewood Times’ fi rst female editor,
as well as executive vice president
and co-owner. Two years later, she
fi nally purchased the paper from
Clemons, who remained on board
as publisher emeritus until his
Maureen Walthers dines with the Ridgewood Times staff .
Maureen Walthers, former owner/publisher of the Ridgewood Times, at a
2007 event. Photo by Douglas Kearse
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