Letters to the editor

Volume One, Issue 32, April 27 - May 3, 2007

Getting behind congestion pricing

To The Editor:
Re: “Hell’s Kitchen dreams a new Ninth Avenue” (news article, April 20):

The community board members and neighborhood leaders who are re-envisioning Ninth Avenue as a safe, pedestrian-friendly avenue are doing heroic work. In my years as a community organizer in Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea, I have heard hundreds of people complain about the noise, traffic and pollution that plague residents as cars make their way into or out of the Lincoln Tunnel.

Unfortunately, traffic congestion is not an issue that we can solve on our own within the neighborhood. We can provide bike lanes and bus lanes and effective traffic monitoring, but the only comprehensive solution to our traffic woes will have to involve fewer cars on the streets.

That is why I hope that residents of Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen will throw our weight behind Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal for a congestion charge for drivers entering the most traffic-snarled parts of Manhattan.

The plan will help commuters throughout the five boroughs and the metropolitan area, as it will funnel new revenue into repairing and expanding our mass transit system. And it will help businesses in Manhattan and neighboring boroughs by reducing the time and money they spend getting goods and personnel from one place to another.

But as we debate what the plan will mean for every part of the city and our nearby suburbs, we shouldn’t forget that to Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen residents, located in the heart of the congestion zone, congestion pricing would mean cleaner air, safer streets and a new lease on public space that we have previously conceded to car traffic.

We’re looking for creative ways to cure our Ninth Avenue woes; congestion pricing is a necessary piece of a real, long-term solution.
John Raskin
Raskin is a director at Housing Conservation Coordinators

Chef can’t stomach PAC plan

To The Editor:
I recently learned of the proposal to replace the community playing fields of Pier 40 with an enormous entertainment mega-complex with a permanent home for Cirque du Soleil, a 12-screen cinema, a giant banquet hall, restaurants, clubs and 40,0000 square feet of destination shopping (the PAC proposal). This is not what the Village needs. Such a plan would forever alter the character of the Village and the waterfront. As a Village parent whose family lives, works and plays here, I write to oppose this proposed transformation.

Pier 40 is a park. It is an oasis where thousands of children, including mine, play ball in a safe community environment. It provides a steady diet of exercise and community. The PAC proposal is a Las Vegas menu in a Village venue. Let’s be more considerate of what we put in our Village, our backyard.
Mario Batali

Sacred principles upheld

To The Editor:
Re “Seminary back in good graces after scrapping Ninth Ave. tower plan” (news article, April 6):

Congratulations to the community activists who fought to preserve the principles of the Chelsea 197a Plan in the General Theological Seminary building foray and thanks to G.T.S. for deciding to build only seven stories on Ninth Ave.

Now I hope the community will work as hard to help G.T.S. find the $21 million it needs to repair the other buildings in The Close. It would seem particularly appropriate to come to G.T.S.’s aid in view of the efforts of Anglicans and conservative Episcopalians to break up the Church.
Ross Graham

Rap and Imus’s real hos

To The Editor:
In its April 13 editorial about Imus, Chelsea Now wonders, “How these words even found their way into his head, we’ll never know.” Actually, any teenager, or even preteen will know: It’s hip-hop and it’s everywhere.

Those are hip-hop’s “normal” terms of speech about women, most usually black women, of course, but it puts white and black women who deplore and detest it in a difficult position: To date, protests by both groups have been futile. There may also be some reluctance of black women to fight black men, who, after generations as Stepin Fetchit, are now stars and kingpins — especially since they’re more likely to be humiliated in the fight than successful.

Still, the news on Friday the 13th that Imus had been fired, while reaction continues to build, may mark a step forward.

As for the why of Imus’s blunder, today it’s axiomatic that “culture” and “style,” which used to arrive top down, from the rich to the masses, come from “the street.” Like the kid with his preppy blond hair teased into a pathetic imitation of dreadlocks I found applying graffiti to a mailbox on Bedford St. one night: He admitted attending a prestigious East Coast prep school, but insisted that marking on the mailbox was his own idea and he did it “for fun.”

Imus may be old enough to be that kid’s grandfather, but he still thinks it’s “fun” and “cool” to call women “hos.” He was making a joke, being “humorous,” he explained. Why anyone not among the criminally insane would find that remark humorous is a question not yet answered, although it’s clear that many do.

An even more serious point, not sufficiently stressed in all this palaver, is about the powerful, important, “successful” politicians, writers and journalists et al., who, knowing Imus’s propensities full well, still lent him their presence for their own purposes, becoming the source of much of his power. We can’t necessarily blame Imus for being a moron, but we can blame his enablers, who are the real “hos.”

As for the culture Imus finds so cool and funny that he imitates it, any 6-year-old can access it on YouTube. Click on “Ludacris P Poppin.” (The “P” stands for a part of the female genitalia, and the video is a contest about shaking said genitalia.) Yes, on YouTube, in a culture that won’t let 6-year-olds see “Star Wars” because of the “violence” and in which a university refuses to let college women produce “The Vagina Monologues,” a huge sum is offered to the very same Ludacris.

Yes, St. John’s University denied permission to a student group to perform “The Vagina Monologues” for Valentine’s Day, but engaged Ludacris for its April 21 Queens campus spring concert, presumably for his usual $85,000 fee. However, the April 12 Queens Times-Ledger reports that last week the university cancelled even the “sanitized for radio” version of Ludacris — due, we dare assume, to the Imus uproar.

Meanwhile, search “Ludacris” or any other rapper and “ho” on the Internet — and a million stories will pop up, although, for at least a while, the genre may be somewhat sanitized. Thanks to Imus.
Judy Seigel