Allen Roskoff returns after Christine Quinn’s exit

Allen Roskoff speaks at a gay rights protest on March 17. Photo: David McGlynn

Allen Roskoff speaks at a gay rights protest on March 17.
Photo: David McGlynn

No one was happier than Allen Roskoff when Christine Quinn was replaced as council speaker by Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Roskoff, the gay rights activist and president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, was an arch-foe of Quinn, whom he considered “much too conservative and in bed with the developers.”

Mark-Viverito and her fellow City Council members are honoring Roskoff — along with the first openly gay NBA player, Jason Collins, and Cynthia Nixon’s wife Christine Marinoni — June 18 at an LGBT Pride Celebration at Cooper Union.

“I was shut out of City Hall for eight years,” Roskoff told me. “Here I am being honored for my work on the same stage where Abraham Lincoln spoke.”

Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club