Schneiderman’s the man
To The Editor:
Re “A.G. orders Croman goon to stop harassing rent-regulated tenants” (news article, July 31):
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is the best thing to happen to tenants in New York in decades. He runs circles around the governor in defending our rights and making things better for workaday renters. Thank goodness we elected him.
Schneiderman’s fight against Croman, and what the A.G. did for that building on Linden St. in Brooklyn — just amazing. I’m a rent-stabilized tenant and I know he has my back.
Thank you, Eric.
Marina Metalios
End ‘broken windows’
To The Editor:
Eric Garner died from police brutality. We extend our deepest condolences to Eric Garner’s family and loved ones. FIERCE stands in solidarity with all communities impacted by unjust policing and brutality, including people of color, transgender and queer people, and homeless and immigrant communities.
FIERCE is an L.G.B.T.Q. organization led by youth of color. We have been organizing local grassroots campaigns to fight police harassment and violence in the West Village for more than 14 years.
As L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color, we are unfortunately intimately familiar with the type of targeting that stems from “broken windows” policing. FIERCE organizes against the violence, harassment and discrimination L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color face from “quality of life” policing practices.
L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color are often targeted for minor offenses, such as blocking a sidewalk, graffiti and homelessness itself. These policies have not made New Yorkers safer. On the contrary, these policies have proven to be discriminatory as low-income New Yorkers and communities of color disproportionately experience hyper-aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses. L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color often experience a cycle of criminalization, as a result.
As Darielle Harris, a FIERCE member, stated, “We strive for a New York City where racial and gender profiling and unnecessary force from the N.Y.P.D. are no longer realities that plague our community. What happened to Eric Garner is unacceptable and, frankly, disgusting.”
The N.Y.P.D. must be held accountable for Eric Garner’s death. The mayor and Police Department commissioner must end their broken-windows program immediately.
L.G.B.T.Q. youth of color say, No Justice! No Peace!
FIERCE is a member of Communities United for Police Reform.
Jai Dulani
Dulani is co-director, FIERCE
Must sink Navy plan
To The Editor:
Re “On sleepy Sullivan St., residents fear second coming of Beatrice Inn” (news article, July 31):
You believe that the owners of Navy will keep Once Upon a Tart open? Seriously? A “rescue” deal means Jerome will have no leverage going forward, and he will be out.
When the community board says no to a liquor license, it’s not only saying no to the applicant. It’s also, by proxy, saying no to the landlord’s lack of creativity and community accountability, in seeking anything other than the high-profit margins of liquor.
This is one of the quietest blocks in all the Village and Soho, and there is a church.
Sullivan St. neighbors, do everything in your power to fight this application. The taxi horns and shouting taxi drivers alone on that tight street, on that unique and difficult corner, will keep you up nights. It’s an echo chamber, and if you are prepared for that, and for the cigarette smoke wafting up into your apartments, and the screeching cell phone calls and screeching laughter of the ladies, and the bellowing of the men, none of whom have the capacity after six drinks to look up and show respect to the neighbors, then by all means, support this application. But we all know what the reality is, so fight it.
A community is allowed to preserve some semblance of peacefulness, in the midst of all the change. Fight this application.
Patrick Shields
Petro pedal standoff
To The Editor:
On July 27, at 9:04 a.m., I stood up from my favorite Petrosino Square perch — the cement banquette just outside the park’s gated portion, on the sidewalk at the intersection of Kenmare St. and Cleveland Place. Leaning on my cane, I began to walk toward my studio, when I heard someone behind me calling, “Out of the way! Out of the way!”
He was an old man, leaning on the handlebars of a racer-style bike, a good-looking man, fully and smartly outfitted to cycle, wearing a fluorescent vest, a handsome black helmet, and stylish cyclist gloves.
I blocked his path.
“This is a sidewalk,” I said firmly.
“Yes, I know, but I can’t get to where I’m going,” he responded.
“Dismount your bike and walk it,” I said sternly.
“I’m late for church. The street is too rough,” came his reply.
“That doesn’t mean that you can ride your bike on the sidewalk,” I told him. “You must know the law. You can be ticketed and your bike can be taken away. I’m 75 years old and I am afraid that cyclists on the sidewalk will knock me down, so I block everyone who rides on the sidewalk.”
“I’m 86 years old,” he said.
“Are you disabled? If you are disabled I will get out of your way.”
He wasn’t disabled, he said, and he took the bike into the street, giving me a brief lecture on fossil fuels.
As he rode away my voice rose.
“I’ve never had a car,” I screamed. “I have no fossil footprint. I rode bikes all my… .” But he was already at Spring St., hurrying to worship his God.
Minerva Durham
Art, not bike station
To The Editor:
Re “Petrosino plaintiffs roll out bike-site appeal” (news article, July 31):
Most, if not all, of the Petrosino protesters support green transportation alternatives like cycling. (Granted, some take issue with “Citi” corporate branding all over the bikes and the stations.)
For years, this community worked with then-City Councilmember Alan Gerson, Community Board 2, and the Parks Department to gather the funding and political will to get Petrosino Park expanded and renovated, and specifically to dedicate its north-end triangle for large sculpture installations.
In fact, Petrosino Park is one of the first in the city to participate in the Art in the Parks program, beginning in 1984. Who can forget Minsuk Cho’s “Ring Dome” (2007), Kim Holleman’s “Trailer Park” (2006), Carole Feuermann’s “Survival of Serena” (2012), Lisa Hoke’s “Molecular Motion” (1984), or three dozen other exhibits from 1984 to 2012?
These artists and more were joined by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, C.B. 2 (multiple times), and every one of our elected representatives (multiple times), in calling on the city to relocate the bike-share station a few feet away into the roadbed. However, obdurate, autocratic, petty bureaucrats who have no sense of aesthetic value would not listen.
The latest legal filing will reassert our rights under the public trust doctrine, which protects dedicated parkland, like Petrosino. Fatally flawed as Justice Kern’s decision is, it did grant the first part of our argument: Contrary to the city’s absurd and insulting claim that Petrosino Square is merely “a traffic island,” Kern acknowledged that it is a park in every meaningful sense of that word.
Georgette Fleischer
Fleischer is founder, Friends of Petrosino Square
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