LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Hospital isn’t listening
To The Editor:
Re “St. Vincent’s starts operating; Plans are at L.P.C.” (news article, Jan. 11):
I have lived in the Village since 1976 and am writing to convey my strong objections to St. Vincent’s present proposal to vastly redevelop and reconfigure its properties at Seventh Ave. and 12th St. I am also writing to convey my disappointment in the hospital’s complete failure to consider and address the many and valid concerns expressed by its neighbors. The recently filed plans are virtually identical to the original proposal which surfaced months ago and have not been modified an iota to take into account residents’ concerns.
I fully recognize and support the need for a state-of-the-art facility. I also recognize the value of the services that St. Vincent’s has provided to our community and to the city as a whole for many years.
But the current proposal is not driven by medical or community need so much as by money and profit. Simply put, St. Vincent’s has stated that it needs to squeeze every dollar from its sale of its current facility. That is not a valid reason to permit it to build a hospital which is the equivalent of a 35-story building, one that dwarfs the scale of every other building in the Village. It is even less reason to permit the Rudin Organization to receive the benefit of, and expand upon, St. Vincent’s past waivers of zoning and density restrictions on the basis of St. Vincent’s status as a medical facility.
St. Vincent’s is proposing to reduce the number of its beds by almost half, and to move part of its facilities out of the proposed new hospital. Nevertheless, the overall density of the entire proposal, both hospital and residential, is substantially greater than the present configuration. In addition, Rudin has refused to reveal its own projections about the scope of the profit it intends to make, or the basis upon which it insists that the behemoth “bookend” of luxury condos cannot be scaled down or modified to comport with the historic character of the neighborhood it seeks to join.
The historic value of the Village is an asset that belongs to us all. Please do not let St. Vincent’s sell it to the highest bidder.
Delia M. Guazzo
