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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Claire Shulman may have left public office in 2002, but the former Queens Borough President is still trying to serve the 2.2 million people of the largest borough.
“I am busier now than I was when I was borough president,” she insisted.
Shulman, 81, currently sits on the board of eight institutions, ranging from arts organizations to hospitals. She actively advocates for the arts, women and children, and health care.
Decades before she had a Queensborough Community College center and a pair of bald eagles named for her and her husband at the Queens Zoo, Shulman first caught the eye of Queens politicos as a concerned mother campaigning to raise funds for school improvement. By 1968, she was chair of Queens Community Board 11. She served as director of the Queens community boards for eight years, then became deputy borough president in 1980, under Donald Manes.
After Manes resigned (and later committed suicide) in a corruption scandal in 1986, Shulman was appointed to replace him. She was reelected in 1989, 1993 and 1997, before being one of the many forced from office by term limits in 2001.
Among her signature issues in office was health care—she was a registered nurse before getting into politics, and met her husband, Dr. Mel Shulman, while both were working at Queens Hospital Center.
“My nursing background was helpful as a politician because I understood health care issues,” Shulman said.
She added that the 2001 construction of a new $149 million complex for the center serving 400,000 patients annually—making it the largest health care provider in Queens—was one of the greatest accomplishments of her political career.
Nonetheless, the octogenarian show no signs of slowing down. In addition to her involvement with all the boards on which she sits, she continues some involvement with public life, and said that she is working with the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) on a project to be announced later this month. She would not go into detail, though, eager to now pass the spotlight to the next generation.
“I think there are so many more new and young politicians out there who are doing good work and deserve recognition,” she said.