Op-Ed Letters to the Editor
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Lower Eastside Girls Club members joined 504 Democrats’
Michael Schweinsburg, right, in calling for restoring
M14 bus stops. They said buses are reliable
transportation for lower-income residents, and that
more stops add to Girls Club members’ safety at night.
Jane would
be smiling
To The Editor:
Re “Court slams brakes on
14th St. busway — again!”
(news article, thevillager.com,
Aug. 9):
No one gave thousands of
dollars. Block associations
made commitments of $1,000
to pay for the record — meaning,
the documents required
for the lawsuit.
Meanwhile the executive director
of Transportation Alternatives
makes $200,000 per
year, its deputy director make
$140,000, and its communications
director makes $120,000.
They are the wealthy folks telling
residents of the Village and
Chelsea what to do.
The Department of Transportation
has already banned
left turns, painted a busway,
turned University Place
around, closed Union Square
West, barred right turns going
east onto Broadway, barred left
turns from Fourth Ave. onto
14th St., and the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority has
instituted off-board ticketing.
My bet is that they have eliminated
the problem without the
dramatic shift of vehicles onto
residential streets.
According to D.O.T.’s own
data, under the busway plan,
1,000 cars per hour would be
shifted just to 12th, 13th, 15th
and 16th Sts.
The agencies should study
the impacts of what they have
done so far, and rely on real
data, not the rhetoric. And
anyone who says that the local
block associations are “organizations
of a small wealthy minority”
doesn’t know anything
about our community.
Writing this three days after
getting a new stay on the busway,
I know that Jane Jacobs is
smiling down at me this morning,
not on Mayor de Blasio.
Arthur Schwartz
Cyclists’
righteous roll
To The Editor:
Re “Wheely mad: TransAlt
rages at attorney” (news article,
Aug. 15):
Transportation Alternatives’
decision to picket Arthur
Schwartz’s home may not have
been particularly politic, but
the “fascism” charge is offthe
charts irony. Bicyclists are
an oppressed and stigmatized
group in New York City, while
motorists are ultra-privileged
and have a virtual license to
kill. Time and again we hear of
pedestrians or cyclists killed by
motorists in what are euphemistically
called “accidents”
or “crashes,” with no charges
fi led. The cyclists are on the
side of social justice, and the
motor-heads (and their enablers,
like Schwartz) on the
side of fascistic Ugly Americanism.
And if Schwartz and his colitigants
have a legitimate argument
against the plans for 14th
St., they blow all their credibility
with their opposition to the
12th and 13th Sts. bike lanes.
We urgently need more space
for bicycles — everywhere.
On the factual tip, I’d like
some corroboration that
Transportation Alternatives’
“top offi cials” make $200,000
a year. Did you check with the
organization, Villager?
Bill Weinberg
Editor’s note: The Transportation
Alternatives staff members’
salaries are listed in the
group’s 2018 IRS 990 form,
available online.
Streets are
for everyone
To The Editor:
Re “Wheely mad: TransAlt
rages at attorney” (news article,
Aug. 15):
Transportation Alternatives,
the well-funded lobbyists behind
many of these street-level
changes, are a bunch of elitist
bullies throwing a temper tantrum
because they didn’t get
their way.
This fi ght is making sure our
neighborhood and our streets
are safe and easy to travel for
everyone — a simple fact that’s
gotten lost in this lovefest/push
for commuters and bicyclists.
We are neighborhoods full of
local businesses, of residents
who’ve been here for decades,
of projects, of public and private
schools, of fancy and rentcontrolled
buildings, of day
workers and visitors.
The “rich” label that’s being
slung at us is just another lie
bandied about by TransAlt, the
side in this that is actually oozing
money.
How about we work together
to make sure everyone is safe
on streets that are becoming
increasingly lawless?
Elissa Stein
E-mail letters, maximum
250 words, to news@
thevillager.com or fax to
212-229-2790 or mail to The
Villager, Letters to the Editor,
1 MetroTech North, 10th
fl oor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Please include phone number
for confi rmation. The Villager
reserves the right to edit
letters for space, grammar,
clarity and libel. Anonymous
letters will not be published.
A power broker’s
legacy; Schwartz
pulls a Moses
BY QUINN RAYMOND
Ask any New York City history buff about the ultimate
legacy of Robert Moses, and she’ll probably say something
like, “He did a few good things, but in the end,
he’ll be remembered for blocking mass transit from his state
parks, to keep poor — as in, black — people out.” Ask a lifelong
Villager the same question, and he might seethingly add,
“And he nearly wiped out our neighborhood for a highway.”
It was Jane Jacobs’s community organizing that saved the
Village from being sacrifi ced to Moses’ love affair with the
automobile. I have to wonder what she would make of local
activist Arthur Schwartz’s current lawsuit. Schwartz is fi ghting
critical improvements to the M14 bus in order to preserve
congested lanes for dangerous, polluting cars and trucks.
Some local history: A decade ago, I helped organize a campaign
to save the M8 bus, which was then on the chopping
block. A total of 3,609 neighbors from Avenue D to West St.,
signed our successful petition to save the bus. Notably, longtime
community activist and District Leader Arthur Schwartz
was not one of them. Since then, his view of mass transit has
shifted from indifferent to hostile.
Like Moses, Schwartz has had a long, dedicated career of
public service. Unfortunately, none of that may be remembered
by future generations. Instead he’ll be the guy who
used his power and legal acumen to keep lower-income people
of color from getting to their jobs — just as Moses kept
them from getting to the beach. This is especially odd, since
Schwartz recently compared his critics to the Klan.
Let me be clear: Unlike Moses — whose hatred of people
of color was well-documented, unambiguous and expansive
— I’m not calling Schwartz a racist. His long career is the
story of a man who has sought justice for the powerless at
(almost) every turn. But the policy he’s fi ghting for is both
racist and classist, and no amount of progressive bona fi des
can get around that.
Folks like Schwartz who choose to drive in the Village are
very different (racially, economically) from the folks who rely
on buses to get to their jobs, schools and doctors appointments.
We know this because of the study Community Service
Society did during the congestion pricing fi ght.
And while I’m singling Schwartz out, he’s not the only limousine
liberal (or SUV socialist?) in our city. Across the river
in Brooklyn, there are similar “progressives” fi ghting against
a shelter for women and children in Park Slope. There are
countless stories like this across our ostensibly left-wing city.
These kind of activists must be out-organized and defeated
— at community board meetings, but also in Schwartz’s case,
at the ballot box.
The diffi cult reality is that the chasm between what we say
we believe versus our actual deeds is a universal condition.
This is the central moral question, and it’s a tough one.
Framed another way: There’s a little bit of Arthur Schwartz
in all of us, and when it comes out we need to take a step back,
look at the big picture, and think of our legacies.
Quinn Raymond is an IT security consultant who grew up
and lived in the Village for 30 years. He currently lives in
Brooklyn Heights.
www.TheVillager.com
Schneps Media TVG August 22, 2019 13
/thevillager.com
/thevillager.com
/www.TheVillager.com
/www.TheVillager.com