In 1989, Christine became the lead organizer for the Housing Justice Campaign, a project of the Association for Neighborhood Housing Development. By organizing a citywide coalition of neighborhood housing groups, tenant organizations, religious leaders, union leaders and community activists, Christine fought for the creation of more affordable housing and for better policies for moderate and low-income New Yorkers.

In 1991, Christine left the Housing Justice Campaign to run Tom Duane’s successful City Council campaign. Following his election, Tom named Christine his Chief of Staff. In that capacity she organized his district office, oversaw constituent services, and directed the offices’ legislative and budgetary efforts, working closely with the community to help identify priorities.

After five years as Councilmember Duane’s chief-of-staff, Christine joined a victims services agency, the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP), as its Executive Director. Under Christine’s leadership, AVP not only expanded its range of programs and services, but also increased awareness of bias crimes nationwide.

Some highlights of Christine’s work in her various capacities over the past decade include:

Tenant organizing:

• At the Housing Justice Campaign, Christine was an outspoken leader in the fight to preserve rent protections and lobbied the City Council to preserve funding for eviction prevention programs. She also administered a low-interest loan program to provide heat and hot water for financially troubled tenant owned buildings.

• At Tom Duane’s office, Christine organized neighborhood campaigns to save tenants homes and protect and improve the affordable housing stock every neighborhood in the district. The battles included fighting for the Sigmund and Ivelli tenants on West 22^rd Street, Elaine Schechter of Perry Street, and the residents of Leo House on West 23^rd Street, as well as playing an essential role in the effort to preserve and maintain the buildings owned by Martin Fine on 9^th Avenue in Clinton.
• Today, Christine is continuing her work for tenants as a volunteer with Chelsea United for Tenants Rights and as a member of New York State Tenants and Neighbors.

Women’s Issues:

• During the Democratic National Convention in 1992, New York’s abortion clinics were threatened by attack from Operation Rescue. Recognizing that threat, Christine reached out on Tom Duane’s behalf to all the police precinct captains in the Third Council District to make sure they understood that clinic defenders were allowed to be present to protect clients (in the past clinic defenders had been erroneously arrested). Christine also organized outreach to other councilmembers so they could replicate this effort in their districts and coordinated a district-wide clinic defense training. Having volunteered as a clinic defender in the past, Christine again volunteered her time to be a captain for one of our clinics in Greenwich Village.

• Several issues of sexual harassment within government came to Tom Duane’s attention during Christine’s tenure and she took on efforts to force those agencies to address the problem and punish offending employees. In one instance, a long-time fire department doctor was accused by several female firefighters of sexually assaulting them during routine physical exams. Christine organized internal and external pressure on the Fire Department, forcing the doctor into early retirement.
• At AVP, Christine oversaw AVP’s Domestic Violence Unit, the largest same-gender domestic violence program in the nation. And when the Village experienced a series of rapes in the summer of 1996, AVP posted information about the crimes and provided self-defense training for any women interested.

Parks & Environmental Efforts:

• While at Trinity college, Christine became active in the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (CONNPIRG), and led the lobbying effort that succeeded in creating and funding the state’s household hazardous waste program.
• Upon graduating, Christine was a field organizer for Massachusetts Citizens for Safe Energy, a grassroots coalition working to close two nuclear power plants.

• At the Housing Justice Campaign, Christine sat on the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, and fought to increase funding and educational programs for recycling. At Tom Duane’s office, she was critical in the effort to get a special recycling program in the West 4^th Street subway, a program she hopes to replicate throughout the City when she is in the Council.
• Recognizing the lack of public open space in lower Manhattan, Christine and Tom worked to secure funding for the recently approved multi-million dollar rehabilitation of Chelsea Park and the renovations of Bleecker and Penn South playgrounds.
• Christine has worked with waterfront activists to prevent commercial development on our waterfront, from preserving access to Guadacanal/Pier 84 in Clinton to preventing a sports megastore from opening on the Chelsea waterfront. Christine is a member of the Chelsea Waterside Park Association.

Education:

• When opening of our public schools was threatened by the asbestos crisis, and the central Board of Education failed to follow the recommendations of Community School Board 2 with regard to asbestos abatement priorities, Christine and local parents successfully convinced the Chancellor to follow the local board’s suggestions and deal with the schools most in need first.
• During the City’s budget negotiations, Christine and Tom were able to secure funding to rehabilitate PS 3 and PS 33’s playgrounds, and to create or upgrade computer centers in every public school in the district.
• In 1993, when the religious right sought to take control of New York City’s school boards, she and others created School PAC, which gave resources to progressive school board candidates across the City.

• With Tom, Christine fought to rid our schools of milk made with the genetic growth hormone rBGH. They introduced legislation that would prevent the Board of Education or any other City agency from buying milk from dairy farms that use synthetic growth hormones.

Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights:

• Christine was the campaign manager for Tom Duane in his historic race for City Council, when he became the first openly gay person in the New York City Council and the only openly HIV-positive election official in the nation. She was also the statewide field organizer for Karen Burstein’s Attorney General race, and the director of the Staten Islanders for Common Sense campaign, a labor backed effort to prevent homophobe Guy Molinari from being District Attorney.

• An active part of the coalition effort that forced Mayor Dinkins to keep his promise to see passage of meaningful domestic partnership legislation, Christine was also a litigant in the Human Right Commission case.

• With Tom, Christine successfully lobbied Mayor Dinkins to move the Annual Conference of Mayors out of Colorado shortly after the anti-gay Amendment 2 was passed.
• Christine coordinated other New York activists to help the Maine Don’t Discriminate campaign against an anti-gay proposal in that state, and traveled to Maine during the campaign.
• At AVP, Christine led the development of the domestic violence program to become the largest gay or lesbian service of its type in the nation. She was also active in lobbying the state for hate crimes legislation and participated in the creating an inclusive bill to be introduced by Governor Pataki.
• A lead organizer of SchoolPAC, Christine worked with other progressive activists and organizations to elect multicultural candidates to the school board in 1993
• As Tom Duane’s chief of staff, Christine led the Coalition for a Fair and Impartial Civilian Complaint Review Board in its successful effort to prevent the Rev. Ruben Diaz, a known homophobe and AIDS-phobe, from being re-appointed to this agency.

Christine Quinn is currently running for City Council in Manhattan’s Third District, which includes the neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton, and parts of SoHo and Murray Hill.

This site was created by James Harrington.  
For website related questions, please email james@jamesonline.com 

For all correspondence with the City Council Office, 
please call (212) 768-4344; or e-mail quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

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