Art squeezed out of the parks
To The Editor:
Re “East Side, West Side, park improvements all around; It’s a green golden age” (Progress Report article, by Adrian Benepe, Nov. 18):
What Commissioner Benepe’s “Green and Golden Age” refers to is green for the money and gold for the profits he is funneling to corporations, BID’s and park conservancies at the public’s expense. He is the commissioner of park privatization; a real estate agent trying to get the highest price per square foot for our public parks.
Free speech, artists’ rights and public use of the parks are the collateral victims of this real estate scam that puts giant holiday vending markets in the most crowded parks, and luxury condos in new parks. Soon enough, he’ll have all the trees removed from Union Square Park because they take up valuable space needed by park concessions.
For a graphic example of Benepe’s “Golden Age” see this link, https://www.scribd.com/doc/42641529/
Holiday-Market-2010-USP .
Robert Lederman
Lederman is president of ARTIST (Artists’ Response to Illegal State Tactics)
Cyclists must obey rules
To The Editor:
Re “The peddling of pedaling and those pesky pedestrians” (talking point, by Daniel Meltzer, Nov. 18):
I used to be a biker and was terrified to bike on the streets. Thus, I had to limit my pedaling to the parks, and to get there I would have to walk my bike on sidewalks. I would have certainly welcomed a bike lane.
I no longer bicycle, and am now mostly a pedestrian or bus rider. Bikes scare me to death. They come zooming out of nowhere when I cross the street, completely ignoring red lights.
What to do? Bike lanes are not the problem — properly used, they could be a boon. But, wherever they bike, if cyclists don’t obey the rules, they are a danger. I don’t really understand Meltzer’s objection to the lanes. If there weren’t lanes, wouldn’t the bikers be on the streets instead, posing the same menace as they do in the lanes?
Joan Wile
Wish list for the streets
To The Editor:
Re “The peddling of pedaling and those pesky pedestrians” (talking point, by Daniel Meltzer, Nov. 18):
The situation is astonishingly weird already in the East Village: First Ave. is so chopped up and impossible for cars, taxis and the disabled, that setting regulations for bikers ain’t solving the problems most of us have with this ditzy plan.
I personally want more bikes and more, more mass transit, but government continues to conspire against this.
I want cyclists (and I also want them regulated, fined, imprisoned for life if they ride on the sidewalk, ignore signals, etc.). I want mass transit. I want private cars outta here. O.K., so I want too much.
Lu Krasne
Incoming! Look out — bikers!
To The Editor:
Re “The peddling of pedaling and those pesky pedestrians” (talking point, by Daniel Meltzer, Nov. 18):
Great article and right on! The bikers are like kamikazes. They ride their bikes everywhere and anywhere at any speed, with total disregard for traffic direction, stoplights or pedestrian safety — and that’s not just the delivery bikers. There needs to be far more oversight and penalties for breaking the law.
Gretchen Berger
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