Someone wants to teach Forest Hills and Rego Park residents about local political history.
A mystery political buff has been posting fliers about old Forest Hills and Rego Park Democratic clubs around bus stops, stores, even inside newspaper boxes, according to local historian Michael Perlman, who in the past several years has spotted dozens of them throughout the neighborhood.
Most of the fliers depict pages from bulletins published several decades ago by the Queens County New Frontier Regular Democratic Club, a once prominent organization which was located at 69-12 Austin St., and the Continental Regular Democratic Club, which had its headquarters at 98-12 66th Ave., Perlman said.
The fliers “document community and political events, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s, vintage phone numbers with alphabetical prefixes, addresses of both political clubs, and often feature Arthur Katzman,” the late councilman who represented Forest Hills and Rego Park around that time, Perlman said.
"Spotting local memorabilia from the 1960s and 1970s posted around our neighborhood has intrigued me over the past two years,” Perlman said.
The clubs no longer exist, according to Michael Cohen, a spokesman for local Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, and a former state assemblyman, who is familiar with both organizations.
Cohen suspects that the fliers are being posted by a former member as a testament to the clubs' histories.
Photo credit: Michael Perlman
After Perlman posted pictures of the fliers on a neighborhood Facebook page, a number of residents said they have also been perplexed by them for years.
"I see them too and am curious who are [sic] posting them and for what purpose," one member wrote.
"I have been seeing these papers around town too....why are they being used? Is it just recycling?" posted another.
The historian, who most recently spotted two of the fliers last Tuesday at the bus stop on Queens Boulevard and 68th Drive, called them an "outdoor museum."
"It is possible that the fliers are being posted by someone who has great memories of those political organizations," he said. "This is likely their means of preservation."
