My Speech At 2011 Broadway Beauty Pageant

My remarks from Monday, March 21st.

"It’s great to be back for our fifth year and we’re already looking ahead to 2012. I’d like to thank the literally hundreds of people who have helped make this event an annual reality.

Before I bring on Carl to tell you more about the outstanding work done by The Ali Forney Center, I wanted to say a few words on a fairly dry subject, The New York State Budget.

In 1984 New York Governor Mario Cuomo, in his famous keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, spoke of a tale of two cities. In one city, people were doing well and in another “people slept on the city streets,” while the youth slipped into hopelessness.

I’d invite the current Gov. Cuomo to read his father’s speech and learn from it. His latest budget guts funding to homeless organizations, like the one we’re supporting tonight.

When the first Gov. Cuomo spoke that the “struggle to live with dignity is the real story of this city,” he was talking about the youth who benefit from The Ali Forney Center.

Here to tell you more about those young people, it’s my honor to introduce my friend and hero Carl Siciliano."