2020 YEAR IN REVIEW
Queens mourns loss of prominent fi gures
Queens lost several prominent figures throughout 2020. File photos
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.10 COM | DEC. 25-DEC. 31, 2020
ics, government and politics” who was
responsible as “anyone else alive today
for making Black representation in government
a reality.”
Rep. Grace Meng remembered Spigner
as a “trailblazer and titan who fought
to represent the lies he represented.”
Spigner represented southeast
Queens on the City Council from 1974
to 2001, the last 15 of those years as the
deputy to the majority leader Peter F.
Vallone.
Anne Quashen
Queens said goodbye to another
leader in former PFLAG President Anne
Quashen, who died in April at age 88. She
served as the leader of the Queens chapter
of the organization that advocates for
gay people and their families.
Councilman Daniel Dromm recalled
Quashen as a “model LGBTQ activist”
who dedicated “25 years of her life to
providing emotional support and other
resources to family members of LGBTQ
people who chose to live their lives openly
at a time it was not possible to do so.”
Andrew Kirby
The borough’s business community
mourned the loss of longtime Plaxall
President Andrew Kirby for always “doing
what’s best” for Long Island City
when he passed.
Kirby was a key figure in the transformation
of the once-gritty industrial
area it was to the nation’s fastest-growing
neighborhoods it is now,
Kirby served on the board of directors
at the Long Island City Partnership.
He was 66.
Whitey Ford
From the world of sports, Yankees
pitching legend and Astoria native Whitey
Ford died in October at age 91.
Known as the “Chairman of the
Board,” Ford was a six-time World Series
champion, 1961 Cy Young winner
and World Series MVP, plus a 10-time
all-star for the Yankees from 1950 to 1967
who put his career on hold to fight in the
U.S.Army during the Korean War from
1951 to 1952.
Luke Gasparre
Astoria bid farewell to another war
veteran when “local legend” Luke Gasparre
died in February at age 95.
At the young age of 18, Gasparre
trained to become a soldier and was assigned
to the 87th Infantry Division that
was tasked with breaking through the
German lines during World War II. He
fought in the Battle of the Bulge, which
was the highest casualty operation in the
European Theater.
At one point, Gasparre was in combat
for five straight months earning seven
medals including the Bronze Star and
Purple Heart. Upon his return to Astoria,
Gasparre worked for the postal service
for 34 years and to make ends meet
he took a job as an usher for the New
York Mets for 55 years, the most ever
in the Mets organization. He was also a
ticket taker and usher at the U.S. Open
for more than 40 years.
Gasparre also served as the longtime
leader of the Tamiment Democratic Club
in Astoria and was also a member of various
other civic groups.
Philip Kahn
Fresh Meadows native Philip Kahn
was another member of the Greatest
Generation that died in 2020.
Kahn was a combat veteran of the
Battle of Iwo Jima before serving s a chief
flight engineer and co-pilot on a B-29 Superfortress
during the months-long firebombing
of Tokyo and performed aerial
surveying of the damage done by the
atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
Kahn died of COVID-19 at age 100,
a century after his twin brother succumbed
to the Spanish flu soon after his
death in 1919.
Dr. Jimmy Heath
The Queens cultural community
mourned the loss of jazz pioneer Dr. Jimmy
Heath at age 93.
The longtime Corona resident’s
career began during the big-band era
through bebop and fusion during his
seven decades of jazz history. Heath was
a tenor saxophonist who played in bands
led by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet
Baker, Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis
and many others.
In 2003, the National Endowment of
the Arts named him a Jazz Master and
he went on to be a composer and professor
of music at the Aaron Copland School
of Music at Queens College for two decades,
where he helped launch the jazz
studies program in 1986.
Heath went by the nickname “Little
Bird” in reference to fellow jazz legend
Charlie Parker.
BY BILL PARRY
While 2020 was filled with loss amid
the COVID-19 pandemic, Queens said
goodbye to several prominent figures
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 figure in 2020
when Claire Shulman, the first woman
to serve as Queens borough president,
died in August at the age of 94 after battling
lung and pancreatic cancer.
In her 16 years in office, 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 Theatre, 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 first LGBT senior center in Queens,
Louis Armstrong House, Thalia Spanish
Theatre, 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 film industry to
western Queens was one of her greatest
accomplishments.
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 figure in civ-