De Sapio opponents still strong
To The Editor:
As a lifelong Downtowner, I was very interested in your Downtown Notebook article, “Remembering the battles with De Sapio and Tammany Hall” (Aug. 6 –12). I would like to tell your readers that the Village Independent Democrats campaign committee is now in the very good hands of William Stricklin and his exuberant workers for progressive issues and candidates. They’re active in voter registration, tabling support for Kerry/Edwards at the local street fairs — here’s the place to get your buttons — and doing some very innovative letter writing and other campaigns to get America back on track.
Joan Gregg
Tribeca development
To The Editor:
Thank you for a great article on the rezoning in Tribeca (news article, Aug. 6 –12, “Tribeca real estate market’s next boom”).
I just want to point out one slight error in the map you showed of the rezoning of the four blocks. You showed the map going from one block north of the Jack Parker site to two blocks south of it. In fact the re-zoning application is for that site plus three blocks south. The block north is not up for rezoning.
For your information there is and will be massive resistance to any rezoning of those four blocks and it will go to the Supreme Court or when hell freeze’s over, whichever happens first. We are not going to be turned into the West Village waterfront with glass and steel towers.
Mr. Parker better be ready for a fight because the natives are restless.
Andy Neale
Editor’s Note: The proposed zoning change would indeed include the Jack Parker site and the three blocks to the south, an area bounded by Watts, Washington, Hubert and West Sts.
Regrettably no regrets
To The Editor:
How can we forget the great spirit of generosity and concern with which the U.S. Congress enacted legislation that granted all of the Lower Manhattan community (everything south of Houston St.) millions of dollars for revitalization and recovery efforts right after 9/11. Has that spirit dissipated so much, and has the tragedy faded to such a callous degree that Lower Manhattan Development Corp. chairman John Whitehead cannot even find the means to express any regret about L.M.D.C. funding decisions, which according to Good Jobs New York, was not transparent in its preference to allocate millions of dollars of federal 9/11 recovery funds to big businesses and to organizations linked to L.M.D.C. board members (news article, Aug. 13 – 19, “Watchdog group criticizes L.M.D.C.’s allocation”).
Certainly the residents and small business merchants of the Lower East Side and Chinatown can feel lots of regret, and more when considering economic hardships, unemployment and health issues being endured by low and moderate-income residents due to 9/11, including the additional dire consequences of hundreds of factory and restaurant closures, and the ongoing displacement of families, fallen victims to the vagaries of an accelerated post-9/11 gentrification frenzy occurring in these traditional immigrant neighborhoods. By design or through omission, the L.M.D.C. has allowed this to happen.
Might Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Assemblyman Silver, Senators Schumer and Clinton, Congressional Representatives Nadler and Velazquez, HUD, and even the U.S. Congress be concerned that there really is no oversight as to whether or not L.M.D.C. decisions and dealings fully comply with the congressional intent to address the needs of all communities south of Houston St.?
Regrets not forthcoming (and recusals not withstanding), could big businesses, film festivals and staffed informational kiosks on one side of Lower Manhattan really be so much more important as to, by neglect, render completely expendable a largely low-income minority population on the other side of Lower Manhattan?
Victor J. Papa
Member of Community Board 1
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