Black Vs.

By Richard Stengel

The people of Howard Beach, Queens, have always been proud that their neighborhood is set apart, insulated from the rest of New York City. A close- knit community of modest row houses and trim gardens, it is bordered by Jamaica Bay to the south, Spring Creek Park to the west, Kennedy Airport to the east and a highway to the north. Along Cross Bay Boulevard, the community's main artery, clam bars and pizza parlors contend for local business, while above the street sea gulls lazily flap their wings. Most of Howard Beach's inhabitants are Italians, and its older section feels more like a slightly run-down seaside resort than a corner of the nation's largest city. To ensure safety and enforce quiet, householders pay $220 a year to maintain a private security force.

But the sleepy insularity of Howard Beach ended last week. Overnight a brutal attack against three young black men at a local pizza parlor turned the neighborhood into a national synonym for flagrant racial violence. The death of one of the young blacks and the apparently unprovoked beating of all three at the hands of a gang of white teenagers caused New York City's Mayor Ed Koch to describe what happened as the "most horrendous incident" of violence in his nine years as mayor. Local civil rights leaders saw the attack not as an isolated outbreak but as the latest example of a pervasive prejudice that lurks just below the surface of New York life. It was, said Roscoe Brown Jr., president of Bronx Community College, an example of the "institutional racism that permeates this city, in business and in government." When some 2,000 black and white civil rights advocates marched in Howard Beach on Saturday, they were jeered at with obscenities by a large crowd of young whites from the community.

On Friday evening, Dec. 19, Howard Beach was humming with holiday festivities. Residents cruised slowly in their cars to gape at the Vigliarolo family's front lawn, an electrified montage of Santa's workshop. Around the corner, more cars were parked in front of Steven Schorr's house, where 30 of his friends were helping him celebrate his 18th birthday. Among them were Jon Lester, 17, Jason Ladone, 16, and Scott Kern, 17. Shortly before midnight, according to police, several guests, including Lester, left the party to drive a young woman home. Along Cross Bay Boulevard their headlights caught three blacks walking toward the New Park pizza parlor. "Niggers!" yelled the whites.

Earlier that evening the three black men, Michael Griffith, 23, Cedric Sandiford, 36, and Timothy Grimes, 18, along with Griffith's cousin Curtis Sylvester, 20, had left the Griffith home in Brooklyn. They later told police they had gone to Far Rockaway in Queens to pick up Griffith's paycheck from a construction site. On their way back to Brooklyn, their 1976 Buick broke down on Cross Bay Boulevard. Sylvester stayed with the car, and the other three went off to look for help. They stopped about three miles away at the pizza parlor, a ramshackle fixture in Howard Beach, ordered some slices of pizza and sat down.

When the three left the restaurant at 12:40 a.m., they were accosted by eleven white teenagers -- led, say police, by Lester, who brandished a baseball bat, Kern, who had a tree limb, and Ladone. The whites first taunted the blacks and then began beating them. Grimes was hit once before he managed to escape. Griffith and Sandiford tried to get away, but the teenagers caught up with them along a fence that bordered the Shore Parkway and continued their assault. Sandiford feigned unconsciousness. Griffith, severely beaten, dove through a 3-ft. hole in the fence and staggered onto the parkway. He was struck and killed by an automobile driven by Dominick Blum, 24, of Brooklyn, a court officer and the son of a policeman.

Two days later Lester, Ladone and Kern were arrested and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and assault. Lester, a slight, baby-faced junior at John Adams High School, who immigrated to the U.S. with his family from England four years ago, had one previous arrest, for possession of a loaded .32-cal. handgun. The family of the murdered man, Michael Griffith, had also immigrated to New York, having come from Trinidad 18 years ago. According to a medical examiner's report, the dead man had a bullet in his chest, the result of a dispute. Griffith never pressed charges.

Timothy Mitchell, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Queens, declared that Howard Beach is representative "of the deep-seated enclave mentality of the Borough of Queens." Noting that Mafia Boss John Gotti lives in Howard Beach, Mitchell suggested that Gotti's presence, as well as that of other Mob leaders, contributes greatly to a "macho Mafia mentality" on the part of local young people.

In the neighborhood, many residents seemed unrepentant. Youngsters from Howard Beach, claimed Joe Funaro, a longtime resident, are "abused by blacks" in other parts of the city. "They know when they go out there, they don't feel safe." At the local John Adams High School, where whites and nonwhites are almost equally represented, Lester has become a folk hero to some of the white students. But to the friends and relatives of Michael Griffith who jammed a funeral service for him in Bedford-Stuyvesant last Friday, Lester is a symbol of society gone awry. "We wonder why these events are happening," said the Rev. Robert Seay in his eulogy. "The great ((civil rights)) movement was to have ended all this. But society admits and encourages violence and bigotry. When teenagers commit a crime like this, the blame is not only on them, but on their parents and on society."

With reporting by Joseph N. Boyce and Mary Cronin/New York