Op-Ed Letters to the Editor
White Horse
‘inside story’
To The Editor:
Re “Whoa! Call to
landmark White Horse
interior” (news article,
March 14):
Having worked at
The White Horse for fi ve
years in the 1980s I can
tell you that those walls
have treasured stories, and
not only the walls but fl oors
as well!
One of my favorite stories
was from the ’70s when the
assistant night porter had a
crash pad in the basement that
was only accessible by an outdoor
metal entrance, locked at
night, or the trapdoor behind
the bar.
There were wonderful impersonations
of the storied
characters and the aplomb the
bartender offered as he waved
the porter and his lady friends
down the steps as all activity
by the taps came to a standstill,
a full bar of waiting patrons
notwithstanding.
The shenanigans are just a
humorous sidebar to the resonant
beauty of the tap room’s
hollow echoing fl oor. The Emerald
Society’s bagpipers ballads
have made the most of its
amplifi cation for their yearly St.
Patrick’s Day visit for decades,
and if this is already something
else lost to time, we can
mourn now. Please landmark
The White Horse interior, if
not the added rooms, at least
the original pair that include
the corner tap room. Once
New York’s historical gems are
tossed away, the whole island
will just be another nameless
anonymous strip mall.
Veronica Marino
Bring back
deliveries, Joe!
To The Editor:
Re “Johnson urges Trader
Joe’s to do deliveries” (thevillager.
com, March 15):
We’ve been be-Trade! The
bargains are delicious, but
hauling bags of groceries up
and down the subway stairs is
no picnic. Three bells, Trader
Joe’s! Please reinstate the delivery
service.
Susan M. Silver
Pat’s
spirit
lives on
To The Editor:
Re “Patricia Winters-Liotta,
60, a saint with a scissors”
(obituary, March 14):
My friend Pat took over after
my other haircutter Frank
died. She and I became friends
and would go out to dinner after
I got a haircut. I loved her
spirit and we always laughed
and had fun. Several times she
invited some of her friends to
join us and it was always fun.
I went to her for many years
and watched her son grow up,
saw her get married to Andrew
and create a lovely home in Atlantic
Beach that she invited
me to, and even saw her fi shes
in the backyard.
I always assumed she would
be my friend forever. She has
left us but her spirit lives on. I
am glad her son will keep the
shop open. Long live Pat.
Bob Seligson
Think about
brain injury
To The Editor:
Since 1997, I’ve tackled the
ongoing daily ups-and-downs
of my own wholly life-altering
traumatic brain injury, caused
by Con Edison’s now so-called
stray voltage. Much of the media’s
limited focus when they
cover the more “sensational”
incidents emphasizes “remarkable
recoveries,” “exceptional
care” and “vast support.”
The White Horse Tavern’s
interior is as worthy of
landmarking as its exterior,
say advocates — and
at least one former employee.
The typical brain injury story
actually is usually a very complex,
erratic, gritty and lasting
one, with no less inspiring or
heroic elements than the media
models. Many of the injury’s
symptoms are often recognized
only by its survivors or the
most sensitive care providers,
who themselves are likely to be
baffl ed by the overwhelmingly
and even contradictory array of
systemic challenges.
Improved awareness and
care may begin by obtaining
information from organizations
like the Brain Injury Association
of America (biausa.
org), by encouraging more
in-depth representation in the
media, and by fair and compassionate
action by our legislators
and healthcare providers.
Phil Vanaria
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libel. Anonymous letters will
not be published.
Our high-rise hell
BY LYNN ELLSWORTH
Among the many horrors of overdevelopment we face in
Lower Manhattan, the most heartbreaking has to be the vision
of a dystopic future seen in the renderings of a series of
projects slated for Two Bridges, the Lower East Side enclave along
the East River, between the Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridges.
One tower is already up, four more are to come. They are out-ofscale,
corporate, anonymous and painful to look at. These projects’
displacement effects will dwarf the number of moderate-income
units that come baked into the deal.
It’s a great, unmeasurable folly to limit our judgment of such
monster projects to the number of pretend “affordable” housing
units they create. These towers fail on all counts and portend a terrible
future for New York: oligarchic, dark, anti-urban, turned inward,
with the wealthy getting around in armored SUVs at ground
level, and fl ying around from private helipads the rest of the time,
serviced by Amazon drones right to their private, terraced parks
40 stories up. For the rest of us there will be blockage of views to
the river, shadows, residential displacement and no direct sunlight
at street level all day long, all year-round. That’s already the case in
Midtown, so why keep repeating that mistake?
These glassy tower complexes,
just like at Hudson Yards,
like Long Island City, Downtown
Brooklyn, Essex Crossing,
Domino Sugar Factory,
Why repeat
Midtown’s
mistakes?
Sunnyside, East Harlem and
Yorkville are the architecture of
death — death of a city, death of
what urban greatness we once
had, death of a human-scale
world. There are two lawsuits
trying to fi ght the Two Bridges
towers. One is in the works by
a coalition of Lower East Side
and Chinatown residents. They
charge that the city is violating
its own laws in putting up these monsters. This group is ready to
use whatever barricades they can fi nd. They know how to organize,
do rallies, read the political tea leaves and have no illusions. That
is, even if we can get these towers to go through a public land-use
review process (ULURP) there is no indication that Councilmember
Margaret Chin would then actually use that opportunity to stop
them. To help this coalition, go to their Web site.
The second lawsuit fi led — under community pressure — was
developed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer in alliance
with the City Council. Their suit claims that the head of City
Planning (Big Real Estate insider Carl Weisbrod) violated the law
and behaved arbitrarily and capriciously when he declared that the
zoning changes these towers required were all just “minor modifi -
cations” sic. As such, the projects could go through the bureaucracy
with his nod alone rather than through the normal (and
deeply fl awed) public review process that much smaller projects
must undergo.
However, judges don’t want to intervene in issues involving regulatory
agencies, and typically throw up their hands, claiming they
can’t do anything because all discretion lies with the experts in the
regulatory agency. On the bright side, the City Council’s legal brief
is very good and lays out a good case that Weisbrod was on the
wrong side of the law.
Fighting these towers also means fi ghting a vision of the city that
we don’t want, and arguing for a human-scale alternative. Go to
www.humanscale.nyc and take the voter pledge not to support any
candidates who take real estate money. That’s a fi rst step that will
connect you to one of the many resistance networks in the city.
Ellsworth is chairperson, Tribeca Trust, and president, Human-
Scale NYC
Schneps Media TVG March 21, 2019 13
/www.humanscale.nyc
/www.humanscale.nyc
link