In awe of the filth
To the Editor,
For the past several months I have read and have seen what people are writing and doing concerning the downtown area. Like so many of us, I lived through 9/11 and was in complete awe at the camaraderie and patriotism that was so present that first year. We all saw the horror of what extremists did to our city and yet we became one and tried our best to get through that awful time. We all watched our neighborhood be built from rubble and slowly began its climb back. It has now been nine years and though it is once again showing signs of life other things have popped up that are completely mind-boggling. The construction of downtown has gotten so out of hand that what will be the final product is not even a welcome site. I feel this is due to the overabundance of rats in our area, the street vendors with their goods thrown all over our sidewalks that you can hardly get by, let alone trying to walk around all of the construction. We have people who cannot even speak English trying to guide us around the huge mess and we have officials telling us that in so many years we will have a beautiful area. That is all well and good but what do we do for now.
The people who are rebuilding are doing a great job but the amount of construction has left us with filth and an infestation of rats. People are deathly afraid of going out at night for fear of the rats. There aren’t just one or two; there are 10 and 12 that are running around at any time during the night. They overrun the parks in the Southbridge area. The new park on Fulton Street, while beautiful, is full of rats at night, bathing in the park’s small ponds of water. The benches around the park are lovely, if you like sitting on benches with rodent boxes under the seats. A walk through City Hall Park is a nightmare. At any time, you will see a rat race past you. It is utterly disgusting.
We are now faced with a mosque being built on Park Place. The argument is whether or not this is proper for the area, just a few blocks away from Ground Zero. While many of us think that it is not, there are many others who will argue that because of freedom of religion it should be built. What I don’t understand is if the people behind the mosque truly believe that it should be built then why can’t they, for the sake of doing the right thing, bring the mosque to another area. If they are looking for peace and harmony it should not matter where the mosque is built. It is not the only mosque itself that many of us are objecting to, it is the site on which it is being built. Out of respect for the thousands of lives lost, it should be built elsewhere. The mentality is that everyone is against Muslim people. I am sure that is partly true but it is not all the Muslim people, but those extremists who come here to harm America. It is not peace they are looking for but chaos and death. They are the extremists that are killing their own people, stoning women, beheading anyone who gets captured and jailing innocent people who venture into their country. That is what and who Americans object to, not the whole Muslim nation. Yet there are people right here who insist that we are against all Muslims. How sad is it that that is what they choose to believe and print?
It is time to move on, it is time to build the W.T.C. now and not procrastinate any longer about who will move into the buildings, how high, how low, how big or small. It is time to give the souls of all those lost a resting place and time to give those who were left behind a place to truly mourn. It is not about the city, but about those who lost their lives and those who are grieving that loss.
Those of us who chose to stay here and make our home here are the ones who suffer through all the changes. It is time that everyone should come together and demand that our streets be clean and rodent free, that our parks and other areas where we choose to walk, sit, and take our children to play should be clean and rodent free, that the W.T.C. be built to be that one area we so sorely miss. We should have a clean area at all times. We should demand a clean area at all times.
Lorraine Fittipaldi
Missed opportunity
To the Editor,
Those who are upset about the closing of St. Vincent’s hospital have no one to blame but themselves. Several years ago, there was a proposal to sell the original site of St. Vincent’s hospital to developers. Proceeds would have been used to leverage additional funding that would have covered the costs for building a new hospital across the street. A private sector developer would have constructed a high-rise condominium on the old St. Vincent’s hospital site. Construction of both a new hospital and high-rise condominium would have created hundreds of jobs. Reopening of a new St. Vincent’s hospital on the west side of 7th Avenue would have preserved hundreds of jobs. The new condominium apartment complex would have also created numerous employment opportunities. The building owner and tenants would have paid taxes supporting additional essential community services. Sadly, the local Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY’s) crowd opposed these plans on the basis of traffic and noise impact during construction. Fast-forward to today and the community has ended with up with no hospital or additional new housing stock, losing hundreds of badly needed jobs in the process.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
