You wrote my story
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
Lincoln, thank you for putting together the pieces of the story so well. Even though almost all of it was already known to me, I was stunned to see it in print and with photos. I especially appreciate that you remind readers, at the end of the article, to consider my father as a whole person, not a monster or hero, just a man who lived life according to his values. Yes, he hurt some people along the way, but don’t we all?
A correction: My sister Lenore was never able to maintain employment longer than a few months at a time due to crushing and untreated anxiety and psychosis. She began recovery about 15 years ago, has a stable and comfortable life, and continues to grow beyond the abuse and into love…as have I.
Love is the reason the story was revealed…love and compassion for myself and for all the other children whose spirits were (and are) crushed by cruelty, objectification, neglect, violence and abandonment. This story is not uncommon. Atrocities are committed against children every moment. Doesn’t everyone already know this? Yet, who ever hears about the damage done to them? How does the damage manifest in the child’s life as it matures and enters the adult world? Our society doesn’t ask and doesn’t tell.
Children are released (or escape) into the world with wounds that are not recognized or acknowledged, wounds that can fester and cause an entire lifetime of misery and misunderstanding.
I am appalled by the lack of education in this country about mental health and mental illness. In our society and within the mental health system there is ignorance, misinformation and stigma. How is a hurt child/adult supposed to find the way back to wholeness without information and guidance? Most don’t.
I began therapy at age 15 and continued it all my life until recently. I first encountered the mental health system as a psychiatric patient in 1998. The story of abuse was in my files, yet no one connected the abuse with what I reported in therapy: the strange behaviors, the interpersonal difficulties that confused me, strange sensations that I later realized were episodes of disassociation. Over the years I was tagged with various diagnoses: major depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder. How were these diagnoses made without adequate information about my experiences, behaviors or symptoms?
The teacher in me is open to conversation with professionals who would be interested in my recovery experiences. In plain language, I can explain how the symptoms of complex PTSD manifested in me, and how I was able to overcome them. I don’t believe I would have survived to age 60 if I had not worked in the mental health field for 15 years. During that time I taught Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and illness management skills. I learned how to manage symptoms of bipolar disorder in myself and to recognize symptomatic behaviors in others. It’s not that complicated or difficult to understand mental illness, but for some reason the information is not getting to the public in any effective way that I know.
Lincoln, when we spoke I told you that education was my motive for sharing the story and documents about my father with you. I could not have written this story; I’m too worn out from living it. You did an amazing job of organizing and putting together all the information. You wrote my story. Thank you. Thank you.
May all beings be free from suffering.
Jenean
Respect for family
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
I’d like to clarify a couple small points. First, I don’t know the specifics of my aunt Lenore’s life, work and history. I was speaking in generalities, which was careless.
Furthermore, what I meant by my being “more together” has to do with the arc of my life relative to others — I was not directly affected by my grandfather David [Adam Purple] and enjoyed the privileges of a more or less “normal” upbringing.
David’s children have done truly amazing things with their lives. Adam David [Adam Purple’s son] and my mother, Jenean, are remarkable human beings, and my statement in the article appears casually disparaging in retrospect, which was not my intent.
Steve Mason
Tough stuff, well done
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
I don’t think I have ever written a journalist before after reading an article they wrote but I was so impressed with your recent interview / coverage of Adam Purple’s daughter. Tough stuff but I commend the fact you took on the issue. Really tremendous work. Well done and thanks.
Thanks for your ongoing coverage of our community.
Jeff McMillan
Purple praise
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
This is the best piece of local journalism I’ve read in years. Thanks to Lincoln Anderson for taking the time to cultivate it. Thanks to Jenean, Lenore and Steve for having the courage to speak.
Jim Flynn
False icon worship
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
I hope the children find peace after all this and it sounds like they have. Unfortunately a lot of people who are “icons” and are worshiped are, in reality, total strangers to the people who hold them in such high regard. But it’s nice to be thankful for the good things that he did with his life later on.
Eden Brower
Why didn’t we know?
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
Thank you for a very good story. I had no knowledge about Adam’s dark side. This story should have come out much sooner. I always thought he was an extreme eccentric but otherwise harmless.
Adam’s garden was a beautiful garden but its canvas was too big — 149 low-income apartments too big.
Valerio Orselli
Orselli is executive director, Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association
Lower East Side stories
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
This is probably from a journalistic viewpoint the best piece of work Lincoln Anderson has ever written for The Villager newspaper. It is very sad that Adam Purple’s legacy will be forever changed by this article, but his children clearly wanted this to come out and I applaud Lincoln for writing this. One of the anonymous quotes is mine. Guess which one.
Re “Seeing the LES plainly for what it really was” (talking point, by Elliot Jager, Dec. 31):
The neighborhood, despite drugs and crime, was a haven for the working poor and for artists, musicians and others who had little money but were able to afford to live indoors in apartments on the LES.
Look at the number of people, especially children, living in shelters now. They are from families who used to be able to rent apartments in the neighborhood. There is a class war invasion now and the poor have totally been defeated by landlords and real estate developers.
Jager’s conclusion supports the rich in the class war. Oh, and I am sure he can write another column in 10 years and mention how nice the “East Village” is since all the Puerto Ricans have been gentrified out.
John Penley
Fatherhood unnatural
To The Editor:
Re “The dark side of Purple” (news article, Dec. 31):
It is often the case that heroes or role models have dark pasts. This is undoubtedly the reason they re-devote their lives to helping humanity.
Being a father or stepfather is basically an unnatural act. The role doesn’t really exist in nature, where paternity is an unknown. (Male animals usually have to be kept away from their offspring.) Human patriarchal society puts men as fathers in an impossible situation. All that power without a decent framework to operate within.
Once they gave up on religion and middle-class values, the hippies were basically improvising with whatever imprinting they were left with as children. I’m not forgiving Purple for his sexual abuse of his children. I certainly didn’t know anything about it. I do commend Adam for reinventing himself and creating something else much better to remember him by.
There has to be a balance between cynicism and hope that allows us to admire the good things that this man did.
Carl Hultberg
Rigged election process
To The Editor:
Re “Arcane process to pick Silver successor favors district leaders” (news article, Dec. 31):
Thanks to The Villager for opening a discussion that needs to see the light of day. Ever since the September primary in the 65th Assembly District for judicial delegates, I have been concerned enough about electoral politics to independently request from one of my district leaders and Cathleen McCadden, executive director of the Manhattan Democratic County Committee, a current list of the Democratic County Committee members. That neither my district leader nor Ms. McCadden is forthcoming, either to the press or to me as an elected Democratic County Committee member, and that Ms. McCadden now declines to respond to my polite e-mail requests, suggests a deliberate and coordinated lack of transparency.
It looks as if my next assemblymember in the 65th A.D. may be chosen in a complex set of backroom deals that I will have little, if anything, to do with.
How can it be that after the September primary, 40 vacancies out of 186 positions can be filled by district leader fiat? How discomforting is it that two of the eight district leaders in the 65th A.D. are running for the Assembly position themselves? To me, it is extremely discomforting. Even before the handpicked post-primary packing of the County Committee, I cannot help but notice, based on a Freedom of Information Law request to the Board of Elections, that only 17 of the 146 elected Democratic County Committee members actually live in the election district they represent. (All live in the 65th A.D., but in many cases at the opposite end of it from the election district they stand for.)
Furthermore, one of the district leaders/candidates for Sheldon Silver’s seat is joined by 22 others at her address in Battery Park City, which results in B.P.C. constituting close to one-fifth of all the Democratic County Committee members in the district. There are close to 100 election districts in the 65th A.D.; proportionally, each should have about one percent of weight. However, in this case, one district gets close to 20 percent weight. How can this disproportion be representative, democratic or fair? Of course it is not fair. There is nothing about this process that is fair. By design it is not transparent to the public.
There’s been much talk lately in the tasteless and aggressive anonymous comments appended to articles in The Villager and the other Downtown press that praises a “new breed” of candidate who proves “mettle” by eliminating competitors, conveying an abhorrent political Darwinism. It is presented as axiomatic that Democratic club politics is “a dirty business” and that we had just better put up with it. But should we? Really? Who does that serve?
Georgette Fleischer
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, 1 Metrotech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.
