Volume 17 • Issue 19 | October 01 – 07, 2004
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
East Side school
To The Editor:
I am so tired of the “West Siders” grumbling about a zoned school being built on the East Side (news article, Sept. 24 – 30, “Zoning dispute looms with new school”). As a parent who had to send one daughter to elementary school in Chelsea and to middle school in the upper seventies, and then had to get a variance to send my younger daughter to P.S. 234, I am appalled at the ranting and raving of some of the Battery Park City parents.
We on the East Side were true pioneers. I have lived here for over twenty years. My parents moved here when the neighborhood was deserted and there was no Seaport as we know it today. Many of us are second generation and are now raising our children here. I now have one daughter in college and one in high school so I will have missed out on a zoned school, but I think it is important that other parents don’t have to go through all the headaches and hassles I had to when it came to finding a school for my children. Isn’t it about time we had a school of our own?
Maureen Morrone
No trust on pier
To The Editor:
It is dreadfully disappointing that once again we have the Hudson River Park Trust acting in a preemptory fashion regarding the developer selection process at Pier 57 (news article, Sept. 24 –30, “Trust considers two plans for Pier 57”). With no notice, the Trust eliminated two of the four proposals to be subject to public review. This ensured that the public would have limited choices, almost to the point of a meaningless exercise.
The first signals from H.R.P.T. regarding the development of Pier 57 were very encouraging, suggesting that cultural and educational activities were a priority. This led many of us to believe that community uses had a real chance of being the focal point of Pier 57. The fact that the former bus garage never produced any revenue made the monetary aspect of the development less crucial. But the inside track was greased far more extensively than anything we have seen in recent years.
For too long the public has been expected to accept sole-source contracts, or sweetheart deals, as the way things are done. Ultimately the taxpayers pay the freight. In the end, whether it is city-owned property or state-owned property, it is public space. While revenue may be a necessary evil, it was the Trust that indicated that going from no revenue to a self-sustaining enterprise was great and anything after that was gravy.
Unfortunately, we’ll never get the opportunity to compare what might have been. This is another painful example of an authority operating in its own interest and not necessarily to the benefit of the public.
Deborah J. Glick
Assemblymember for the 66th District
Tower and Southbridge
To The Editor:
Ms. Kaysen’s Sept. 24th article, “20 more stories for Beekman building,” states that the building’s additional height was “proposed as a solution to concerns from the residents of the neighboring Southbridge Towers that the development would block their windows.” This is an error; it is the residents of 140 and 150 Nassau who objected to the tower abutting their buildings. Their lawyer’s negotiations led to an agreement with the developer to include a plaza separating a taller, slimmer building from their windows.
We in Southbridge object strenuously to this massive development which will have a horrific impact on our quality of life. Community Board 1’s district manager Paul Goldstein hopes that 50,000 square feet in the 75-story tower will be set-aside for a community center. This admirable goal will not begin to address the concerns of those living on Gold Street who face the site. We will bear the brunt of the incredible noise, dust and air pollution from the years of construction. We deserve monetary compensation to purchase sound-deadening windows so that our own apartments remain habitable. In order for our neighborhood’s air quality to be acceptable, construction should be delayed until an environmental impact study is completed. Our community has suffered terribly after 9/11 and we should not be subjected to increasing health risks for the sake of the developer’s monetary gain.
Annette Choudhury
WWW Downtown Express
