New York ? Her voice trembling and tears welling in her eyes, Christine Quinn made history Wednesday by assuming her new role of “Madame Speaker” of the New York City Council.

“For 8 million New Yorkers, we are the people’s house,” Quinn, 39, said on being elected speaker of the 51-member Council with just one abstaining vote.

She is the first woman – and first openly gay person – to lead the city’s legislative branch, a post that has existed in various forms since the city’s consolidation in 1898.

“It is our responsibility to connect our government with the needs of the people,” she told a standing-room-only audience in the Council chamber of City Hall.

Those on hand included her father, Lawrence, 79, a retired electrical engineer and union activist, and Quinn’s partner, Kim Catullo. Quinn choked up when she alluded to her mother, Mary Callahan Quinn, who died of cancer in 1982.

Quinn also wiped away tears several times, at one point saying she was “incredibly proud that in the most diverse city in the world, that diversity is seen as a strength – not an impediment.”

She offered to join Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the war on illegal guns, saying, “Mr. Mayor, I will go anywhere you need to stop the flow of illegal guns into this city.”