Much respect for Field
To The Editor:
Re “After 50 years, famed fashionista Patricia Field closing Downtown store” (news article, Dec. 10):
Pat is a genius. She has helped so many people in so many ways, helping them with jobs, getting started in the business, emotional support and so on.
In the 1980s she was one of the first unique and fabulous stores that sold my Clayton Caps. After the Tompkins Square police riot and during my court case period, she came to court as a supporter. She was a vital force in so many nightclub scenes. In fashion, she was always on the leading, trendsetting edge.
She is much more than a leading-edge fashion store and designer. She is a symbol of all that is good in that hard, crusty business. I send her my love and respect.
Clayton Patterson
Trump scarier than terrorism
To The Editor:
Re “Speaker leads interfaith speak-out against Trump” (news article, Dec. 10):
Donald Trump has taken a page out of the fascist playbook to scapegoat minorities in order to spread hatred, bigotry and xenophobia to boost his poll numbers and try to convince his supporters that they are victims. Shamefully, they seem all too willing to buy into his narcissistic psychopathology.
If you listen to Trump’s rhetoric, he seems more concerned with his “ratings” than he actually does with being a serious candidate for president. Winning is not an agenda or a policy statement for him, it is an ego trip. America deserves more than a blustering demagogue for its leader.
And I wonder if he really believes all the hate-filled excrement that comes out of his mouth. He’s managed to attack Hispanics, blacks, women, the disabled and anyone who even slightly disagrees with his fascist views. I find that a great deal more frightening than any terrorist threat.
Jay Matlick
Only leaving feet first
To The Editor:
Re “Toledano tenants unite to fight eviction efforts in East Village buildings” (news article, Dec. 10):
Killing me is the only thing that hasn’t been tried yet to get me out of my rent-controlled place. I’ve told people, I hope that the landlord does a nice, quick, professional job if he does murder me.
When I was young one landlord tried to “prove” that I wasn’t rent-controlled, but I still had all the rent checks going back to the first one, in August 1964. When that didn’t work, he made a serious offer to buy me out, which I thought about. I forget the amount, but I remember that he was willing to also give me a year to move out saying, “Think of what you could do with the money, and a young, handsome guy like you can always live rent-free with some woman.”
My present landlord owns a lot of buildings. When he took over my building, he completely renovated the apartments, which required people to move out of them entirely during the renovation. Fortunately, I got to stay in an empty one right next door that had recently been vacated by an old man who had lived in it until he got too old and his family had to come and get him. The landlord also bought out and got rid of the remaining rent-controlled tenants, but not me. He didn’t even make me a serious offer. Instead, he waited five years or so to pull an elaborate scheme to get me out.
Perhaps when my wife died suddenly from stomach cancer in 2004, the landlord thought he might be able to get a grief-stricken me out easily. Suddenly, all kinds of junk appeared in the hallways and the roof was carpeted with potted plants and even potted corn stalks, along with a barbecue. He tried to blame me for it and wrote letters with a date that I refused to leave by. In the meantime he had one set of lawyers trying to evict me for the junk in the hallway and for turning the roof into my “private preserve” and another set of lawyers that held my rent checks to try to evict me for nonpayment of rent.
When he, finally, after months of this elaborate charade, served me with an eviction summons to appear in housing court, he got a call from the District Council 37 union lawyers, and their one phone call ended the landlord’s elaborate charade. He has since left me alone since he now knows that as a retired civil servant, I am entitled to free legal representation as part of my DC 37 union benefits.
So I guess the only way he could get me out would be to murder me, but he’s too big and too rich a landlord to risk that, not to mention that he may not have to wait that much longer before this 75-year-old is too old and too sick to live on the next-to-top floor of this Village walk-up. My wish is to die before that happens, so…dear landlord, go ahead and blow me away.
I would still have to leave within five to 10 years if it weren’t for the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption, or SCRIE. The landlords are slowly doing away with rent-regulated apartments. The Big Apple is now the Big Money Vault.
Rusty Wilson
BdB turns his back on bizzes
To The Editor:
Re “What would Francis do? Voting on the S.B.J.S.A.” (talking point, by Sharon Woolums, Dec. 3):
Mayor de Blasio recently said, the city “stands behind immigrants.” He has not stood up for the majority-immigrant small business owners as they struggle to survive the high rents and landlord abuses. Instead, he has turned his back and allowed greedy landlords to rob the life’s savings of our hard-working business owners. He has followed the Bloomberg economic policy of favoring and protecting real estate profits. Immigrant business owners have no future in New York City under this mayor, this Council speaker and Councilmember Cornegy.
Sung Soo Kim
Kim is president, Korean-American Small Business Organization
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