The Astoria Senior Residence at 21-05 30th Dr., Astoria, will be renamed the Vallone Family Residence for Seniors in a ribboncutting ceremony October 15. On October 15, the Astoria Senior Residence at 21st Street and 30th Road will be dedicated and renamed as the Vallone Family Senior Residence. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a Fall Festival group activity with seniors and young members of the Salah M. Hassanein Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens, on the grounds of which the residence is situated, will take place from 3 to 5 p.m., followed by a gala/dinner celebration in the evening at Terrace on the Park in Flushing. The dinner celebration will also serve as a fundraiser for the Variety Boys and Girls Club.

The Astoria Senior Residence, a $13.5 million housing complex for senior citizens, which includes supportive services and health related activities, opened in June 2005. The residence is an 11-story elevator building containing 98 one-bedroom units. Each residential floor has 10 apartments per floor, except for the second floor, which has eight rental apartments, a superintendent’s apartment and a laundry room. The units are handicapped adaptable, with design features such as grab bars, handicapped accessible showers and special kitchen designs to accommodate “aging-in-place”. Fifteen percent of the units are handicapped accessible.

The building was sited on the grounds of the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens, among other reasons, to augment the club’s efforts to foster relationships between youngsters and senior citizens. The residence opened on the 50th anniversary of the club’s founding. Then Variety Board President Tom Nowierski pointed out that even before the residence opened, seniors were helping children to read in the Club library, serving as monitors in the pool area and teaching chess. “In turn, the children help make the seniors laugh, stay involved with life and feel needed,” he added. Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, who was instrumental in securing funding for the project summarized the purpose and benefits of the project: “Young people from the Boys and Girls Club will be keeping residents company for years to come and will learn from the perspective of their elders at the same time.”

Former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., City Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. and the entire Vallone family have had a long and cordial relationship with the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens and the Astoria Senior residence. In the early 1950s, youth gangs were a serious problem in Astoria and Long Island City and Meyer “Moe” Baranco and attorney (later Judge) Charles J. Vallone, father of Peter Vallone Sr., decided to establish a place for local youngsters to spend their time off the streets in a wholesome atmosphere. Vallone, Baranco and Salah Hassanein bought a house in Douglaston and raffled it off to raise funds to start the club.

In 1981, the board of directors decided to offer services to young women in the community. Four years later, the club expanded all of its services to girls. Money was raised for an auxiliary gymnasium, and for additional recreational and support services to girls 6 to 17 years of age and the club became the Salah M. Hassanein Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens. Ground was broken for the Senior residence in June 2003. In 2006, the building received a Residential-Apartment Building award from Queens & Bronx Building Association (QBBA). For more information, call 718- 728-0946.