Back-to-School Buys Head September 1947 Concerns

Get into a conversation with a long-time Queens resident and you're likely to discover a subscriber of the Long Island Star- Journal, a daily paper that informed the community about local and world news until it folded in 1968. A banner across the Star- Journal masthead reminded readers that the newspaper's name came from the merger of the Long Island Daily Star (1876) and the North Shore Daily Journal--The Flushing Journal (1841).

Welcome to September 1947!

On September 2, it was back to school for fashion-conscious kiddies (perhaps more for their self-conscious parents). Flushing's own Abramson Department Store offered an impressive line of back-to-school clothes. For boys, there was the "Hockmeyer" Tweeduroy Zippered Jacket for $6.50 and matching slacks for $5.98. For girls, on sale was a wool cardigan sweater for $2.98 and all wool skirts in navy blue for $3.98. A completely outfitted school bag was $1.19, complete with three composition books, pencil case with four pencils included, pen holder and ruler. What impact these had on report card grades, however, will remain a mystery.

Before the age of the Internet predator, there was the telephone masher. And before the need for parents to monitor the online behavior of their children was 17-year-old, detective-in-the-making Patricia Heedles of Woodhaven.

One evening in late August, Heedles received a telephone call from an unidentified man who was believed to have similarly harassed other women in the area. The caller soon engaged young Heedles in a lengthy tête-à-tête peppered with suggestive language. Much like the types parents have come to fear today, this individual soon felt emboldened enough to arrange a rendezvous with Heedles at the Woodhaven station on the Jamaica L line. But young Heedles brought along Detective Robert Schnurr of the Richmond Hill Squad, who promptly arrested the offender in question, identified as 39-year-old Frank Gantz of Middle Village.

Gantz eventually pleaded guilty to the offense, blaming it on his drinking habit. As for Heedles, the experience inspired her to believe that she might have a future career in law enforcement.

On Sept. 10, 1947, the Quaker Meeting House was vandalized. Under the headline "Is there no shame?" the Star Journal sadly reported that neighborhood youths were presumably responsible for hurling stones, some the size of a loaf of bread, and destroying parts of Flushing's venerable Quaker Meeting House. Sixty-one of the house's antique windowpanes were destroyed. Flushing Society of Friends trustee Charles Powell said that the damaged windowpanes were irreplaceable. The antique glass and the hand-fashioned woodwork surrounding the panes were long unavailable and only special, expensive craftsmen could replace them. He concluded: "This is one of the rankest incidents in Flushing history."

Queens detectives were under orders to clear the borough's streets of all crooks. Commissioner Arthur Wallander of Whitestone implied that strong-arm methods could be used in "mussing up" hoodlums.

Borough detectives, commanders, district commanders and district heads of the Homicide Squad were told in a 20-minute session with the commissioner to go out and get all hoodlums off the streets. "I want the hoodlums off the streets," Wallander told 40 top officers. "Get the street corner loafers and the easy money crowd. Give them the proper business. If there are any shirkers in your department, get rid of them. See that your men are on the job." The previous "muss 'em up" order had been issued in 1934 by then Commissioner Lewis Valentine in a directive to break up Murder, Inc.

Opponents squared off over the alleged scandalous conditions at the Rego Park Veterans Housing Project. United States Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had visited the site during the previous week with members of the American Legion Housing Committee and said, "Conditions are disgraceful." The location, created with federal funds, was slammed as a slum area. The project, which housed 1,424 families, was subject to complaints of rats and mosquitoes. The reporter noticed few grassy plots and only mud holes for play areas.

Letters to the editor differed sharply. "They're a disgrace," one Corona housewife contended. "We ought to be ashamed of hovels. The vets and their families deserve better."

But at least one Rego Park vet begged to differ: "Huts are not slums!" wrote Philip Minoff, who praised his home as "the only home we had known for five years. It's paradise for my family." He closed a letter that took issue with the senator with a snide comment: "I want you to know how 'happy' you've made every one of the 1,400 families in the Rego Park houses by calling our community a bunch of rat infested huts built on a garbage dump."

Locating public housing remained a controversial issue. A suggestion to build a project in Jackson Heights on several blocks around 90th Street and Northern Boulevard drew strong opposition. A statement signed by the Queensboro Corporation, the developer of Jackson Heights, along with the North Queens Civic Association, the Jackson Heights Taxpayers Association, and the Long Island Real Estate Board suggested other areas for the housing.

The statement read in part: "For 35 years Jackson Heights has been developed as a garden residential section. Placing a lowrent subsidized housing project next to one of New York's most carefully developed residential areas will result in a serous tax depreciation of the entire area, a loss with [which] the city cannot afford. Private builders are holding up the start of construction on new apartments and lending companies are withdrawing or lowering mortgage commitments."

Other sites considered included a parking lot for the 1939-40 World's Fair near Northern Boulevard, along the Horace Harding Expressway in Elmhurst, the Flushing Airport, and a spot in Astoria on Northern Boulevard. The last location was chosen, and a few years later the Woodside Houses would be built on it.

That's the way it was on September 1947!

The Greater Astoria Historical Society is open to the public on Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. at Quinn's Gallery, 4th Floor, 35- 20 Broadway, Long Island City. A new exhibit, "Hunters Point through the eyes of a native son: The photographs of Frank Carrado", opened on Saturday, September 29 at 1 p.m.

This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts

For more information, call the Greater Astoria Historical Society at 718-278-0700 or visit www.astorialic.org.