Volume 73, Number 30 | November 26 – December 2, 2003
LETTERS
Duane and Gottfried on gay marriage
To The Editor:
Re “Politicians hail Massachusetts gay marriage ruling” (news article, Nov. 19):
We are glad The Villager covered the Nov.18 press conference at City Hall, celebrating the Massachusetts ruling on the right of same-sex couples to civil marriage. Your readers should know what is happening on marriage equality in New York.
In Albany, we have introduced the “Right to Marry” bill, which would formally recognize marriages whether the parties are of the same or different sex. We helped form the Right to Marry Coalition, a coalition of individuals and organizations to educate and lobby elected officials in support of this legislation. The New York State Democratic Committee voted last month to support the right to marry for same-sex couples.
Stable family relationships help build a stronger society. For the welfare of the community and fairness to all New Yorkers, same-sex couples should have the same rights as others to the legal and social protections, responsibilities and benefits of civil marriage.
The legal institution of marriage works for society as a whole. If same-sex couples want to join that institution, we should welcome them.
With the historic ruling of the Massachusetts court and the legalization of marriage for same-sex couples in Canada, we hope New York will be next.
Tom Duane
Duane is State Senator for the 27th District
Richard N. Gottfried
Gottfried is Assemblymember for the 64th District
Don’t add low-income housing
To The Editor:
As a believer in public support of all kinds and even housing on an appropriate scale I am dismayed by the thought of building large-scale public housing in an area that is burdened by low income and is sub par (relative to rest of city) in lack of public services.
It is a great irony of public housing that it has proved to be no better than the slum housing it was designed to replace. The time has come to recognize that the fundamental assumptions behind the public housing movement were mistaken.
Even the Chicago Housing Authority is changing its perception of what to do — Why should we make the same mistake and repeat a history that has been proven wrong? The following excerpt is from their Web page on their change of thought on public housing:
“The C.H.A.’s Plan for Transformation is a program to rebuild and modernize the nation’s third-largest public housing system. Thanks to a firm commitment from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city’s public housing is undergoing a comprehensive renewal. We are redeveloping or rehabilitating 25,000 apartments for families and senior citizens. We are ending the isolation of public housing residents by creating new mixed-income communities, where people of all economic backgrounds will live as neighbors.”
It seems like myself and all of my neighbors are not mixed except culturally — It’s time to stop and think about what this community is doing. Why make the same mistake? I found the community board meeting the other evening absurd and racist somewhat racist. Though Italian I often get thrown in as a Jew by others in the community and feel the hatred.
I think it is an incredible mistake to jeopardize what has been an improving neighborhood south of Delancey St.
Drive up the F.D.R. near our community and it is clear that more of a concentration of low-income housing will be detrimental to our community.
John Sosnowski
More projects will set us back
To The Editor:
I oppose the construction of low-income housing in the Lower East Side, between Delancey St. and Grand St., and east of Essex St.
As a former resident of subsidized housing, I appreciate the benefits and social responsibility it provides to low-income residents. It is clear, however, that housing projects succeed only in economically balanced neighborhoods. Large clusters of projects breed only more poverty and synchronous decline. The Lower East Side is already populated by huge blocks of projects, too numerous to list. In the 20 years that I have resided here, the neighborhood has fought to rehabilitate its image of a poor, crime-ridden ghetto, to one that attracts families, professionals, moderate-income residents and great businesses.
The neighborhood’s new economic and resident diversity is a clear boon to current residents as well as the city (especially during a fiscal deficit). To add housing projects here would reverse the progress made and deny the city the potential of its real estate.
I urge our elected officials and the community board to investigate more fully the ramifications before approving proposed low-income projects that could plunge this developing area into depression. You will find community opinion strongly in favor of the current progress.
Dianna Chen
Great uncle was Villager’s editor
To The Editor:
This might seem like a very strange inquiry, but here goes.
My great uncle, Bill Williamson, was the editor and publisher of a small community newspaper called the Greenwich Village Villager up until the time he passed away in the mid-’70s. I seem to remember an affiliation with a Mrs. Bryan, who might have had an ownership stake in the enterprise. My uncle was involved with the Salmagundi Club, and loved the Village. He’d been in the ad business in Boston prior to moving to the city in the late ’50s or early ’60s.
I was just wondering if your publication is the successor to this. I note your masthead tag, “Since 1933.” If there is any historical information in your archives on my uncle that would be a bonus. Sincerest thanks.
Jeff Owen
Editor’s note: William J. Williamson was publisher of The Villager from 1961 through 1973, and represented the last family link at the paper to its founders, Walter and Isabel Bryan, the brother and sister team from Missouri who started The Villager in 1933. Upon Isabel Bryan’s death in 1957, her sister Merle Bryan Williamson, took over the paper at age 83. After Merle died in 1961, her son, William J. Williamson, became publisher. The paper went through financial hardship in the 1970s and changed owners several times. It has always been called The Villager, never the Greenwich Village Villager.
Devastating doings at Abingdon
To The Editor:
Re “Two trees removed for Abingdon renovation project” (news article, Nov. 19):
It would be nice if William Castro, Manhattan borough commissioner for Parks, could have seen the planting and layout plan for Abingdon Sq. last year. The placing of gardens where people used to sit and putting benches where there was always sun so that there will be no shade in the summer is a diabolical plan to exclude us.
It would be nice if the Parks Dept., now apparently retrogressing to the sneak-and-pounce days of the Moses era, would at least soon realize that trees are vital for the urban atmosphere, they make oxygen and clean the air of pollutants, none more so than the large-leaf London plane tree, 16 of them in Abingdon Sq. at this time last year, now reduced to 13, with no plans to replant back up to 16.
The root ball around the tree, which the photo in The Villager illustrated tied up and ready for trucking to another place, does not look nearly large enough to keep the tree alive when it is replanted.
If George Vellonakis must have an opening at the south end, he could just move the existing opening on Eighth Ave. down a few spans, without putting it at the south curve which required the taking out a strong, high, healthy tree.
Jessie McNab
