The new colonizers
To The Editor:
Re “Beth Israel to close soon: Nurses” (thevillager.com, May 12) and “Beth Israel on life support? Hospital is closing” (news article, May 19):
Thanks to Lincoln Anderson for writing last week’s brave article about the possible sale of Beth Israel to developers who plan to build more housing for the already luxuriously housed; not for yuppies, as Clayton Patterson calls them in this follow-up article — but for the new global billionaire colonials who are driving out the current native Americans of New York City. The ghost of Roger Casement is beating on the door yet again.
Minerva Durham
Déjà vu all over again
To The Editor:
Re “Beth Israel to close soon: Nurses” (thevillager.com, May 12):
I worked at Long Island College Hospital when it closed and I can tell you that this is like déjà vu all over again. It sounds like there is more hush hush around this hospital closing and that they plan to do it more quickly than LICH, which put up a huge fight, as did St. Vincent’s.
It just seems that there are so few hospitals and so many more people in the city. My dream was to move to the Village in my old age where I could get around easily and avail myself of services. I think I have to rethink this.
Hospitals like LICH, St. Vincent’s and Beth Israel did cater to the working-class population. When LICH closed, many Brooklynites, in turn, went into the city to use the Beth Israel hospital and emergency room. Now what? I fear everyone with Obamacare will be forced to go to municipal hospitals and there will be less quality healthcare options for the working class.
Margaret Humphreys
What are our pols doing?
To The Editor:
Re “Beth Israel to close soon: Nurses” (thevillager.com, May 12):
First, congratulations to The Villager and Lincoln Anderson for a smashing job on what could well be the beginning of the end of Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital.
Your online article last week elicited my comment that this was yet another real estate deal about to take precedence over the needs of the Lower Manhatten community one more time. This should not be another win for more luxury, highrise development that does not meet the needs of the millions of New Yorkers (and would-be New Yorkers) that make this city the wonderful, creative, exciting place it has been.
Will our elected officials have the will, determination and know-how to keep the healthcare needs of this community in place? When is it time for the “electeds” to step in and let us patrons of Beth Iz (as it is known) stop this real estate deal?
Gloria Sukenick
Can’t just close B.I.
To The Editor:
Re “Beth Israel to close soon: Nurses” (thevillager.com, May 12):
Nearly every hospital in America was built with federal funds. According to federal law under the Hill Burton Act of 1946, hospitals that are recipients of federal funds have two obligations: first, to provide an annual level of compliance for 20 years or until it is determined the hospital complied with its payback to the community; and, second, make good on a community-service assurance — for the life of the facility.
In other words, hospitals cannot just shut their doors to the community they must serve. If the hospital board decides to close the hospital, they must first determine the impact the closure will have on the community. Typically, this is done with public hearings, usually held by the state or the federal government.
In addition, the value of the hospital’s private, nonprofit status to the community must be determined, in order to convert the hospital from a private nonprofit to a private for-profit facility; to return this value to the state; and/or to determine the impact that the hospital’s closure will have.
Kathleen Sterling
Triangle memorial too much
To The Editor:
Re “St. Vincent’s and AIDS: What’s in a (park) name” (news article, May 12) and “Love and hope flicker at the dawn of motion pictures” (arts article, May 12):
In the May 12 issue of The Villager there are two references to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. One of the large round medallions embedded in the St. Vincent’s / AIDS Memorial Park memorializes the hospital’s treatment of injured victims of that tragic fire in 1911. Also, a review of the play “Evening” included reference to that century-ago tragedy.
How can the proponents of a planned modern street art memorial claim that the fire and its victims are not remembered? It’s a tragedy that is remembered in movies, plays, books, documentaries, tour groups at the site of the fire, victims associations, foundations, every tourist booklet and pamphlet about the Village, the annual Triangle Fire memorial ceremony at the site and continuous press, coverage. All of this speaks to the commemoration of the 146 young lives lost in that long-ago horror.
We do not need blazing steel plates wrapped around a landmarked building on a preserved street, with names of victims falling down from one to another to simulate falling bodies, as a remembrance. Clumsy, poor taste and insensitivity to family descendants of the victims and the community abound in this modern attempt to memorialize the historic tragedy.
To complete the memorial that already exists, what is needed is an appropriate, large “honor roll,” with names and ages of the victims — who will never be forgotten. Please support the opposition to this proposed plan.
Mary Johnson
She’s truly a gift
To The Editor:
Re “Bingo! East Village woman hits the century mark” (news article, May 19):
Thank you for writing about this wonderful centenarian. She is truly a gift from God. My partner Larry and I flew in from the West Coast to celebrate with her and the family.
Babchia Teklya, as she is called by her family, is an avid reader of books and Time magazine, as well as the daily Ukrainian newspaper and weekly. Her favorite phrase when I ask how she is doing is
“I’m hanging in there.”
Natalia Romana
Westbeth W.C. inequality
To The Editor:
Unlike in North Carolina, transgender people can use the bathrooms at Westbeth Corp., a.k.a. Westbeth Artists Housing. Unless, of course, they are in wheelchairs. No wheelchair-accessible public bathrooms exist at Westbeth.
At this artists’ nonprofit, charitable trust-in-perpetuity community, no shared artists’ studio spaces exist for the mobility impaired. However, able-bodied transgenders do have access to the studios and bathrooms.
Where is the equality for wheelchair users?
Margie Rubin
Rubin is a member, Disabled in Action
Gaia made him a new guy
To The Editor:
In reflecting upon The Villager’s monstrous revelations of the past winter about Adam Purple and seeking closure, how can we best integrate our nostalgic memories of him as a gentle wizard of the garden, a dedicated environmental activist and benign eccentric poet, with the need to face up to what would seem to have been the long-hidden truth of his having been responsible for depraved deeds in a phase of his life before we met him?
One of the most striking facets of his story was that haunting and discomforting photo of Adam in his youth. It is clear that this story began with other monsters, and an earlier cycle of victimization.
This, then, was the story of a man who — like Lon Chaney’s character in the old “Wolfman” movies or Gollum in Tolkien’s tales — inherited a terrible curse, a curse whose nature is to make its victims into monsters. Adam’s tragic failing was that he lacked enough perspective to become aware of his derangement, that he did not seek help earlier; and that, combined with a culture in denial, this allowed the curse that had come to him as a child to do grievous damage to other lives, in turn, when parenthood placed children under his roof and in his care.
This is the story of a monster who did what most of us would find inconceivable, yet found a way to become a man again. It is also good to know, from the story of his children’s lives as adults, that such a curse can end and the cycle of life can go on untainted if people do get help.
Adam Purple’s story shows the role that visionary experience and contact with nature can have as catalysts for human transformation. Gaian inspiration was able to fill that unbalanced, grotesquely contorted, wretched shell of a man with something insightful and noble.
Gaia often finds a way to accomplish great works through flawed vehicles. Even if we are imperfect, we can still accomplish much.
We can remember Adam Purple as a man who triumphed over a very dark past, the story of how one monster found a way to become a natural man again, while many others here remain nothing but monsters. The yin-yang symbol at the garden’s center, representing cosmic balance, now seems that much more poignant when we know the magnitude of imbalance that had once raged in his soul.
We have all come of age amidst a pathology-ridden culture. New York City has a lot of damaged people, and is in need of more such gardens.
Cary Robyn
Hey! What about us?
To The Editor
Re “A Salute to Union Square,” The Villager’s May 5 supplement about changes in the Union Square Park area:
The area has certainly changed from when my father spoke on soapboxes in the park in the early 1920s, from when my mother took me shopping to the S. Klein department store on the square in the 1950s, from the early 1980s when my son played with his pre-K class in the pavilion building in the park and the Union Square Community Coalition was established to reverse the deterioration of the park and to help it return to its historic significance as one of the great open spaces in New York City.
I mention U.S.C.C. because your Union Square Park supplement, while doing justice to others who are doing things to improve the park and the area around it, was remiss with regard to the contributions that U.S.C.C. has made to Union Square Park and the surrounding area.
Yes, the supplement mentioned how long U.S.C.C. lobbied to get the Tammany Hall building landmarked, but there is a lot more to U.S.C.C. than that.
Since its inception, U.S.C.C. has striven to improve the park experience for children and the community. U.S.C.C., along with others, was successful in doubling the existing playground space in the park. U.S.C.C. was also instrumental in getting buildings landmarked and protected to help create the nearby Ladies Mile Historic District and is continuing to play a major role regarding the preservation of historic buildings in the area.
One issue that the U.S.C.C. has not been successful with and that your supplement mentioned without naming our organization is the Pavilion Market Cafe restaurant. U.S.C.C. continues to oppose the pavilion building being used as a restaurant because we believe that instead of privatizing it, this structure should be used as a neighborhood center-type facility with various public programs. When my son played in the pavilion, there was a sign posted that said, “For children and guardians only.”
Successful examples of recent U.S.C.C.-sponsored activities were two events held in the pavilion during March. One was a performance by the Renaissance Street Singers performing 15th-century music. The other was a workshop on how to make decorated Ukrainian eggs.
Unfortunately, the city will only allow public use of the pavilion during the colder months, from October to the end of March, because during the warmer months the space is occupied by the restaurant.
U.S.C.C. will continue to pursue the goal of having the pavilion become a year-round community/neighborhood facility, just like Chinatown’s Columbus Park pavilion.
On May 22, U.S.C.C. sponsored a free tour of Union Square Park by noted tour guide Joyce Gold. There will be more upcoming U.S.C.C.-sponsored events,
Bill Borock
Borock is treasurer, Union Square Community Coalition
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.
