Big Brother is watching
To The Editor:
Last month, a bike was stolen from the hallway of my tenement building on E. 12th St. A few days later, a notice was posted with a photograph taken by a security camera inside the building showing the thief taking the bike out of the building.
While I’m glad to see that the bike’s owner has solid proof for the police investigation, this event raises a legal question for me. I was never informed by the building’s management that there was a security camera inside the building, nor were several other tenants with whom I spoke.
Is it permissible for a landlord to install a surveillance system without informing tenants? If the landlord’s argument is that the camera is there to provide security for the tenants, and not for clandestine spying on their activities, why weren’t we notified of its presence?
Greg Masters
Don’t forget composting
To The Editor:
Re “Local nonprofit says reuse better than recycling” (news article, April 22):
In your article on the Lower East Side Ecology Center, you did not mention the very important fact that the L.E.S. Ecology Center recycles vegetable waste at its compost collection site at the Union Square Greenmarket every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They have been doing this for years. We always bring our compostable material here. It’s a good program but not publicized enough.
June Abrams
Historic district is a gouda idea
To The Editor:
Re “Fear of landlord demo’s before district’s calendared” (news article, April 22):
As a boy growing up in small-town New Jersey, I dreamed of Bleecker St. and the music scene I never got to experience.
So when, 20 years later, I found a little old cheese shop I could purchase and move to the corner of Cornelia and Bleecker, I did, and never regretted the fact that I would make my living as a cheesemonger, rather than a musician.
But if you had told me that I would someday not only own a business, but a commercial property and a condominium in this same South Village neighborhood, I would have laughed and said, “From your mouth to God’s ears.” But that’s what happened.
I may not like having any restrictions on what I’m able to do with my property, nor would I seek to encumber others. Nevertheless, I would be very shortsighted indeed were I to claim that a good deal of my success came not only from hard work and good luck, but from the fact that our neighborhood is one of the world’s finest places to live and work, and attracts people from all over the world. And yet, it is not difficult to imagine it ruined through our collective failure to protect it now that we have the chance.
Rob Kaufelt
Kaufelt is owner, Murray’s Cheese
N.Y.U. is doing it again
To The Editor:
Re “On notification and designation” (editorial, May 13):
Your editorial states: “Clearly, projects are moving forward, notably N.Y.U.’s rebuilding of most of the Provincetown Playhouse and Apartments on MacDougal St., though the iconic theater is being saved.”
In fact, New York University is picking up the pace on demolition and apparently not bothering to notify the community or media. There is no sign left of the Provincetown Playhouse, so any claptrap about saving it for posterity was merely a pose.
N.Y.U. has also razed the Catholic Center on Thompson St. and Washington Square South. This was done suddenly and with great speed; the site is now a vacant lot. How tall is the building going to be that replaces it? Once again, Judson Church and its campanile will be obscured, this time from the east. The irony is that when the community complained about the monstrosity going up south of the bell tower, which has ruined the view of this tower from the park, N.Y.U. insisted the view from the east would still show the tower against the sky!
N.Y.U. wants to expand until it is all that’s left in the Village.
Terese Coe
E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 145 Sixth Ave., ground floor, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The Villager does not publish anonymous letters.
