On the brief side...
Maltese, Gallagher Push For 9/11 Memorial

State Senator Serphin Maltese and City Councilmember Dennis Gallagher, both Middle Village Republicans, have been asked by residents and community leaders to achieve agreement between the city Parks Department and the American Day Parade Committee for a September 11 Memorial in Dry Harbor Playground in the Glendale section of Forest Park.

Maltese said he has secured $3,500 for the construction of the memorial and other funds for the September 11 Memorial Day Parade.

Gallagher has strongly criticized the Parks Department for its failure to agree on a site for the memorial. "It's a travesty that the Parks Department doesn't recognize the need for local memorials so that family members have a place to go and reflect," Gallagher said. See Delays In KeySpan Sale

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and state Comptroller Alan Hevesi have indicated their offices will delay reviewing the Long Island Power Authority's (LIPA) new contract with KeySpan until LIPA is ready to signal approval of the gas company's proposed new partner, British company, National Grid PLC.

LIPA Chairman Richard Kessel expects to complete negotiations with National Grid in 90 days, during which he will seek concessions including possible rate cuts and service quality levels. While LIPAis seeking benefits for KeySpan customers on Long Island, any gains made could affect gas company clients in Queens and elsewhere.

United States Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) said he would also like to see assurances of cheaper electric rates, better plant security and reliable service from National Grid before it takes over KeySpan. National Grid has offered to purchase KeySpan for $7.3 billion. Weprin Reintroduces Healthcare Bill

City Councilmember David Weprin (D-Hollis) has reintroduced a bill to extend healthcare coverage to the surviving spouse or surviving domestic partner of a city retiree. Currently, surviving spouses or domestic partners are left without coverage once the retired city employee has passed away.

Weprin said the legislation would affect almost 200,000 city retirees and spouses, and he said he doesn't want them left without coverage because there are already 1.8 million individuals without healthcare coverage in the city. Gioia To MTA: Clean Up Properties

City Councilmember Eric Gioia (D-Long Island City) has called upon the MTA to clean up its act by removing junk and garbage from properties which it owns all around the city.

A majority of the properties surveyed, said Gioia, contain illegal dumps and graffiti-violations that are located in otherwise clean residential neighborhoods.-Compiled by John Toscano MLHS Singers, Musicians Perform Spring Concert

The Martin Luther High School Fine Arts Department will present their annual Spring Concert at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 24 in the school gymnasium.

During the Spring Band Concert, students in the MLHS Symphonic Band will be joined by students in the school's Lutheran Band program in performing a variety of pieces. The LBP musicians represent local elementary schools in Queens and Brooklyn. Admission to this concert is free; a free-will offering will be accepted.

The MLHS Fine Arts Department presented its annual Sacred Concert on Sunday, March 19 at 3 p.m. in the school gymnasium. During the Sacred Concert, the Concert Choir and Mixed Chorus performed a variety of sacred music, including traditional hymns and works by Gieseke, Burton and Dawson.

Martin Luther High School, accredited by the Middle States Association and registered by the New York State Board of Regents, offers students a college preparatory curriculum within a caring Christian community. Advanced placement courses and college credit classes through St. John's University and Adelphi University are available, as are extracurricular activities ranging from Band and Choir to Varsity and Junior Varsity sports. For more information, call MLHS at 718-894-4000 or visit www.MartinLutherNYC.org.

Bingo!: Exhibition Opens At EHC

On March 21 a new art exhibition, "Bingo!: Works by Yunsook Park", curated by Hyewon Yi, opened at Elmhurst Hospital Center's Art Gallery.In its second solo exhibition, Elmhurst Hospital Center has lent its main lobby space to a talented emerging artist whose brightly colored canvases incorporate the eye-catching elements of Pop Art. Elmhurst Hospital Center is one of the few hospitals in Queens that utilizes its lobby space to present New York City's local artists to the community.

Korean-born Queens resident Yunsook Park presents lucky numbers and game titles through the use of hundreds of lottery tickets cut into small pieces and arranged as symbols related to their respective games. Applied against brightly colored acrylic backgrounds, Park's collages provide visual pleasure as they shimmer with the reflectivity of shattered machine-made objects.The extraction of banal fragments of mass culture for use as the elements of a visual language has its roots in the Pop Art of the 1960s.

In Park's collages, the lottery tickets lose their former significance as the artist removes them from their original context. In her playful meditation, Park uses only winning lottery tickets, thereby adding the symbolic element of luck as a promise of instant wealth. Park's comment on the working class dream of easy money contrasts ironically with the evident hard work that she has poured into her art.

A reception starting at 5 p.m. that included light refreshments marked the opening of the exhibition in the main lobby of the hospital on the evening of March 21. The exhibition will run through May 12.

Elmhurst Hospital Center is a member of the Queens Health Network, part of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, and affiliated with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Elmhurst Hospital Center is also the major tertiary care provider in the borough of Queens.