Justice Patricia P. Satterfield (1942-2023) made history as the first Black woman to be elected judge in Queens County.

Satterfield was born on July 10, 1942. A native of Christchurch, Virginia, she studied music before she studied law. She learned from cellist Pablo Casals in Puerto Rico, and completed her Bachelor of Music Degree at Howard University. She next pursued a master's degree in opera at Indiana University School of Music, and then earned her her J.D. at St. John’s University School of Law in 1977.

She was a junior high school choral director and music teacher at Alva T. Stanford Junior High School in Elmont, NY, before she began her legal career. She held positions in New York’s Unified Court System before making history as the first Black woman to be elected as a judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York in 1990. Later, she was an Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, 11th Judicial District, and was Justice of the Supreme Court, Queens County.

But she served her community in many more ways. She established an internship program in her chambers, mentored through local law schools and the National Association of Women Judges’ Color of Justice Program, and developed a program to introduce law to middle school students.

To name just a few of the additional ways Satterfield committed to service in the profession, she also served as a faculty member at her alma mater St. John's for Continuing Legal Education programs, and as faculty at the Practicing Law Institute. She chaired the Judicial Hearing Officer Selection Advisory Committee for the Second Department. She presented at various seminars and at programs for newly-elected judges and justices.

She was affiliated with the Association of Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the Association of Justices of the Supreme Court of the City of New York National Association of Women Judges, the Judicial Friends of the State of New York, the New York State Bar Association, the Queens County Bar Association, the Queens County Women’s Bar Association, and the Macon B. Allen Black Bar Association.

Satterfield also continued to sing as a professional operatic Soprano.

She retired from the bench in January 2011. To honor her lifetime achievements, Satterfield received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2022.

Satterfield passed away from cancer at the age of 81 on September 6, 2023.

Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers proposed this street co-naming, which was unveiled in a ceremony on July 10, 2024. Satterfield raised her family on this block from 1980, where her daughter, Dr. Danielle N. Williams, still lived at the time of the co-naming, now raising her own children.

“My mother was an amazing trailblazer in the Southeast Queens community,” Dr. Williams told Caribbean Life at the co-naming ceremony. “It was important [that] I cement her legacy, so that future generations know her name."