Letters to the editor

Gansevoort is easy way out

To The Editor:
Re “Mayor, Quinn say Village must get transfer station” (news article, June 8) and “Outer-borough residents say Glick doesn’t play fair” (news article, June 15):

Mayor Bloomberg, in his proposal of using Gansevoort Peninsula as a site for a Sanitation transfer station, has failed to give a valid reason why this use could not be sited elsewhere. No, not in an outer borough and no, not in a community of color. Everyone agrees that Manhattan must do its fair share if New York City is not going to be buried under a pile of garbage.

Alternative sites have been proposed for study on both Piers 57 and 76, which are along the West Side, and there is no evidence that any credible study has been made which would cancel out either of these sites. There is also the concept of using rail freight with a rail transfer station at the Hudson Yards. These proposals have been urged, not only by the New York State elected officials from Greenwich Village but from both Chelsea and the Upper West Side.

Contrary to some of the arguments made by the supporters of the transfer station, this is not a matter of NIMBY (not in my backyard). The Gansevoort Peninsula was always intended to be a park and not one with a large Sanitation facility in its middle. There are issues of traffic, noise and pollution. Ignored are the pedestrians and bicyclists who pass by the peninsula every day at all hours and who would have to interact with large Sanitation trucks.

Ignored also is the fact that the Hudson River Park is not a private park for the residents of Greenwich Village but a public park used by people of all colors and economic classes from all over New York City, as well as the world. It is listed in most tourist guides as a wonderful place to visit. Would a Sanitation facility be placed in Central Park or Prospect Park?

The attacks that have been hurled at our local elected officials, particularly at Assemblymember Deborah Glick, are reprehensible. At no time did anyone suggest that the proposed facility be placed in a low-income or working-class community. The history of New York City in placing odious uses in these neighborhoods is infamous. However, that does not justify New York City’s refusal to investigate alternative sites in Manhattan.

The Federation to Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront & Great Port has joined with Community Boards 1, 2 and 4, Assemblymembers Glick, Richard Gottfried and Linda Rosenthal, State Senator Tom Duane and Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, as well as many environmental and community groups, in seeking viable alternatives to the Gansevoort Peninsula. We call upon the Bloomberg administration to join with us instead of taking the easy way out.

Carol Feinman
Feinman is president, Federation to Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront & Great Port

A safe refuge for kids

To The Editor:
My strong desire in writing this letter is to make clear our family’s intense disapproval of The Related Companies’ Pier 40 redevelopment plans.

These proposals would ruin the feeling of a “small town” sports field. I grew up in the suburbs, so I was lucky to have many beautiful and well-kept playing fields for organized sports. The beauty of having Pier 40 is that it is not surrounded by blaring car horns, sirens, tourists, commercial sales or fear that your child will be taken.

Our son has played at Pier 40 since he was 4 years old and is currently 9 and plays in the Greenwich Village Little League Junior Minors Division. At Pier 40, there is a strong sense of community and a genuine love of youth sports. We often stay after the games to play baseball with our kids on the rooftop field. We have never been charged money or kicked off the field if no one is using it.

This time playing sports with our children creates bonding and friendships. We want a healthy environment for our children. My son is constantly exposed to the insanity of our city. There are many places he can go to see a play, a movie, play video or arcade games and buy toys. The last thing we want is to come to our practices or games on Saturday and Sunday and be exposed to any of that. We want families we know, a quiet place and beautiful “green” space to play sports.

We don’t want either of the two proposals that The Related Companies has developed. Please hear our plea to keep our pier a simple, beautiful field for families to gather and kids to play sports.

Krystn Wagenberg
Wagenberg is president, C.O.O. and executive producer, Mad River Post, Inc.

Hudson River Park okay

To The Editor:
This letter is to reassure your Chelsea readers that all is well with the production schedule of the Chelsea segment of Hudson River Park. There have been many letters and articles in the press about a shortage of funds to finish the park and about disputes concerning major elements of the Tribeca and Greenwich Village segments of the park. This is not the case in Chelsea where construction proceeds and deadlines are observed. Piers 62, 63 and 64 and the upland area between 22nd to 24th Streets are being constructed. Pier 64 is on schedule to be completed in 2008. We hope that Piers 62 and 63 will be completed the following year. Although there is a $6 million shortfall of money due to the two year delay in starting work on Pier 63 because Basketball City over stayed its lease until various courts had ruled that it must leave, we feel confident that the money will be found and that the park will be completed. Why do we feel confident about finishing the Chelsea segment of the park? We feel confident because members of Chelsea Waterside Park Association and members of Community Board 4 have been intimately involved in the financing, the design, and the construction of the park.

No one ever talks about the beauty of the park. The Chelsea Waterside Park, east of the highway, which was built several years ago with federal highway funds is a sheer delight. Tom Balsley, the landscape architect, filled it with curves as a means of escaping from the New York City grid. Chelsea Cove, just west of Chelsea Waterside Park which we in CWPA refer to as CWP West, will be an example of an almost pastoral setting with a semicircle of trees from Piers 62 through 64 sheltering visitors from the noises of the city. The wasteland from 26th Street to 29th Street west of the highway is now a nature habitat filled with plants, trees, grasses, and beautiful flowers. The promise that small creatures would rest there on their never ending journeys, both north and south, has been fulfilled.

We ask you to keep the faith. You saw a pathetic barren triangle turned into a 2 acre park with a great ball field, a children’s play area with exciting new play equipment and with sculptures from Japan that squirt water out of their tops, and a dog play area with boulders to make it a more challenging space for dogs. NYC even closed 23rd Street from 11th Ave. to the highway to unify the disparate parts. Working closely with the Trust staff, we are confident that our dreams will be fulfilled, and soon.

Robert Trentlyon
Trentlyon is vice president of the Chelsea Waterside Park Association