Respect Mother Nature
To The Editor:
“ ‘Diller Island’ sails again: Cuomo salvages Pier 55 plan” (news article, Oct. 26):
Many in the West Village don’t like pieces of the Hudson being awarded to billionaires. Plus, this will block views of the Hudson. The western end of “Dillerville” will rise 60 feet to 70 feet tall, effectively hiding the Hudson. Please leave Mother Nature alone.
The people of the far West Village don’t want this. Only the politicians do and a few Community Board 2 people who don’t live nearby.
After years with impossible crowds, terrible traffic and other commotion due to the Meatpacking District, many of us West Villagers breathed a sigh of relief hearing Dillerville was not happening. It has been (sadly) exhumed.
Elaine Young
Big-bucks art power play
To The Editor:
“ ‘Diller Island’ sails again: Cuomo salvages Pier 55 plan” (news article, Oct. 26):
Disgusting how real estate interests and billionaires always use art as a cultural cover story for their greed. These same plutocrats, Diller and von Furstenberg, pulled this scam with their deceptive “donations” to the High Line. Look at it now: street artists excluded, scores of food carts, daily corporate promotions, awful corporate-sponsored art installations and residential towers occupied by Russian mafia oligarchs, making the local streets impassable.
Their “generous” donations ended up netting them a huge increase in the value of their buildings, which boosted their value by billions of dollars. I wonder how much they donated to Cuomo’s re-election campaign to get him so personally involved in this useless project?
Robert Lederman
Lederman is president, A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists’ Response to Illegal State Tactics)
Pier 55 will never happen
To The Editor:
“ ‘Diller Island’ sails again: Cuomo salvages Pier 55 plan” (news article, Oct. 26):
I predict this thing will never be built. Nobody’s talked yet about the expense of piping fresh water into the island, and of a sewage system to carry off human waste.
Susan Brownmiller
Needs more than a tweak
To The Editor:
Re “On housing, we need a ‘Mitchell-Lama 2.0’” (talking point, by Marni Halasa):
The reason Mitchell-Lama was possible was because there were large portions of the city’s land, including Manhattan, that was cheap and available. It will take more than a minor “tweak” to bring it back.
Donnie Moder
N.Y.U. slap in the face
To The Editor:
Re “Neighbors: N.Y.U. flouting agreement to protect light, air” (news article, Oct. 26):
Another N.Y.U. slap in the face of its neighbors! Mrs. Chin is not going to help the community on this issue. And N.Y.U.’s not going to listen anyway.
Very selfish people destroying our neighborhoods.
Sylvia Rackow
Political redemption
To The Editor:
Re “Neighbors: N.Y.U. flouting agreement to protect light, air” (news article, Oct. 26):
There’s only one way that all the politicians who voted for the “N.Y.U. 2031” development plan and now are courting us for our votes can redeem themselves. They would have to show up at 181 Mercer St. with workers and wheelbarrows and put the bricks back in the pit and cover it up, as if it did not exist, and plant trees and grass, and especially cherry trees, and get rid of all the scaffolding, etc.
No more noise, dust, environmental health hazards and planning and destruction!
Chin did us in. Marte knows the way
Judith Chazen Walsh
Artists value garden
To The Editor:
The beautiful Elizabeth St. Garden has steadily become a vital place for many artists to sustain a meditative relationship to nature. Soho is only three blocks west. Recall only two decades ago, Soho was the capital of the New York City art world from the ’70s to late ’90s during Soho’s golden years. Not only New York City, but the center of the international art community, as well.
I was in Soho all that time and am still an artist there. I’m often well spoken of in big media for my hopes of changing the system for encouraging stronger, better art that can make a difference to the wider American public.
Many artists were driven out by escalating rents, but a fair number remain. According to a long New York Times article last week, there’s a surprise resurgence of many galleries about to open in Soho.
While that’s wonderful, there are no longer any places left in the community for artists to meet. The garden is the last green space around and is magnificent.
Please give artists a needed toehold to revive things. Margaret Chin wants to destroy the garden as part of a shady real estate deal, though not one but several other suitable spaces for housing already exist a few blocks away.
This garden is no weedy lot, as Chin continues to claim — and which she refuses to visit — but beloved by thousands weekly from all over the world for its beauty and place of peace besides serving the local community and artists.
It would be a callous, fascist act for Downtown New York City in these times, like the destroying of the original Penn Station.
Real natural beauty and the preservation of a small bit of nature that can heal the spirit mean less than nothing to these developers like Chin. Show them they are wrong and preserve the Elizabeth St. Garden. I often post images about the garden on my Facebook page.
Bill Rabinovitch
Tree’s pagan roots
To The Editor:
Re “Ai Weiwei ‘Fence’ in full effect underneath the arch” (news article, Oct. 19):
Many local Villagers and tourists have enjoyed the Christmas tree in Washington Square Park for many years. It is, however, not a Christian symbol. It began as a tree or other lit-up something in Northern European countries to remember, on the longest night of the year, that light would return.
Monique Fong
Little goes a long way
To The Editor:
Re “Why we’re pink” (news article, Oct. 12):
The pink pages made the issue difficult to read. Next year, please consider a wraparound or pink limited to the cover page.
Doug Douglass
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 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.
