West Village protector
To The Editor:
Re “Arthur Stoliar, 90, first chairperson of C.B. 2” (obituary, July 27):
Arthur Stoliar contributed greatly to keeping the West Village as we know it today. He was a wonderful man and a good friend. This article captures him so perfectly. He will be remembered and missed.
Diane Lebedeff
You twisted the sisters
To The Editor:
Re “Last Mass passed, effort to save church goes on” (news article, July 27):
There is a significant error in the article about the final Mass at St. Veronica’s Church. You refer to Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity having served the AIDS patients at St. Vincent’s Hospital. That religious congregation is called the Missionaries of Charity, and they never worked at St. Vincent’s, although they certainly do work with AIDS and H.I.V. sufferers right in St. Veronica’s neighborhood.
Many of your readers would recognize that it was the Sisters of Charity of New York who ran St. Vincent’s Hospital. Located at the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, this hospital became famous for its compassionate and groundbreaking treatment of AIDS patients.
Sister Margaret M. O’Brien
O’Brien is assistant to president and treasurer, Sisters of Charity of New York
Pier 40 soccer stadium
To The Editor:
Re “Survey says? C.B. 2 to release online poll on future of Pier 40” (news article, July 27):
Respectfully to Tobi Bergman and the Pier 40 sports community, I still believe that nods to preventing disruption of the pier’s playing fields ought to be made secondary to any plan that gets in and gets out and completes the task as quickly as possible.
And that plan is small-arena construction. Period. Nothing else fits. Continuing to suggest that any large overhaul of Pier 40 can be done with minimum disruption is hopeful, but not possible. C’mon.
Construction environments are unsafe by definition. It’s why people wear hard hats. It’s why there are environmental impact statements. It’s why workers wear OSHA-approved masks. Why keep pushing this fallacy?
On the human-impact side, building a sports arena on Pier 40 would mean temporary weekly crowds — and not even all year-round — rather than daily commuters. And, as I have always argued, a sports arena is a commercial entity consistent with one of the most important constituents on the pier.
Pier 40 needs a complete overhaul and there is only one certain way to do it, and the money still is at hand. You know where I stand on that one — a soccer stadium — and I still believe it has never been given a full and fair hearing in front of the Downtown community.
I have always argued that people will wait to shoot anything down rather than have to come up with fully fleshed-out ideas. And so here you all are yet again.
Though I have always felt hurricane and flood doomsayers to be overly alarmist, I agree with them regarding what should go on or near the pier. Anything that would be disrupted by being unable to move after a surge — a hospital, a school (somewhat), housing (especially senior), offices — should be nonstarters. All of these things would be impacted egregiously by flooding, costing millions, maybe billions, to repair.
Meanwhile, in the case of a storm surge hitting a soccer arena at Pier 40, the team would temporarily relocate while the field was repaired. Assuming New York City FC were playing at Pier 40, they would move right back into Yankee Stadium on a temporary basis — all while revenues from TV, ticket sales and any shared revenues and PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) would continue to flow to the pier and the Trust.
Why not invite NYCFC to make a pitch to the Downtown community, publicly, transparently. Make it clear what the community wants: that at least 50 percent of the pier’s footprint space be used for recreational activity. Just see if it is possible already — and let the community decide.
The soccer team has shown a genuine devotion to community development and community action.
They deserve a hearing. Will you invite them to make an open, public pitch? Why not let the community hear them out?
When did Greenwich Village become so fearful of the new? Soccer is social and progressively political, perhaps the best hope to cut into the dominant American macho sports culture. It is pro-woman and pro-girl, and pro-gay. It is pro-Latino, pro-immigration and pro-American, all at the same time.
Now is the time. If nothing else, it will massively energize this discussion, and draw attention. If not, stubbornness has only done harm. The pier continues to rot.
Patrick Shields
Kmart club craziness
To The Editor:
Today I went to Kmart to pick up my refill of the Simvastatin that my primary-care physician prescribed to me. I expected to pay $9 as part of their annual savings club.
The club carried a $10 annual fee to average $9.83 per month and total $118 per year.
So, I write because while waiting at the counter I heard the pharmacist tell another customer that Kmart closed the club.
But my primary-care physician closed his office to work at Bellevue full time and he’d written a long-term prescription since I’m not seeing my new doctor until November. But
I figured that my membership would still be good through a year. But no, Kmart took the club fee and transferred what their customers paid for prescriptions and put it into their shoppers’ rewards points!
Then, they raised the price of the Simvastatin from $9.83 to $19.83 per month and annually to $238 — or an increase of 95 percent.
I turned my back and walked out while she was explaining how good the deal was.
One friend said, “They Trumped you.” But the fact is that Kmart truly Shkrelied me.
Billy Sternberg
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