Beware BID and its Wi-Fi!
To The Editor:
Re “Feeling hot, hot, hot! Union Sq. hotter than ever!” (Progress Report, by Jennifer Falk, Feb. 28):
Are Jennifer Falks’s numerous rave reviews in The Villager about the business improvement district she runs paid ads, or are we to see them as editorial commentary?
This former staffer for Mayor Bloomberg has presided over years of violating artists’ rights and violating the community’s rights to use their own park. Her shilling for corporate and real estate interests would be laudatory if Union Square Park was the private property her Union Square Partnership BID officers keep telling artists it is.
What used to be a world-famous location for labor and other mass protests and a park that truly celebrated freedom has, under her leadership, devolved into just another piece of commercial real estate ripe for the picking. Helping Danny Meyer and other multimillionaires get richer by exploiting public property is not the purpose of New York City parks.
For me, when one considers the harmful effects of Wi-Fi that are now coming to light, Falk’s BID providing free Wi-Fi in a public park — which will cellularly damage trees, animals and human tissue — pretty much sums up the real effect of the Union Square Partnership on New York City.
Robert Lederman
Lederman is president, ARTIST (Artists’ Response to Illegal State Tactics)
