To the Editor,
This is in answer to the letter
from Sunny Lowe, of Boerum Hill, in
which she laments the changes of her
neighborhood (“Changing Brooklyn,”
Sound Off to the Editor, online
Feb. 17).
I know exactly how she feels. A lot
of people don’t know where my neighborhood
is, and I explain it is between
Midwood and Sheepshead Bay.
In this area, the main shopping
street is Kings Highway. At one time,
it was the epitome of fine shopping
— the best clothing for men, women,
and children. The street was clean,
and you didn’t have to watch out for
people not looking where they are going
because they are on their phones.
There were no bikes ridden on the
sidewalk. There were no empty
stores.
Now, all that has gone by the
wayside. In the span of eight short
blocks, there are about 17 banks —
banks next door to each other, directly
across the street from each
other, diagonally across from each
other, and more than one on a block,
obviously.
We have shlock stores, and on every
block there is an “anteka,” which
is a Russian drugstore. They have
children’s salons, sell children’s cothing,
toys, and some sell adult hats
and shoes, or pots and pans and other
household items. Drugs seem to be a
sideline.
We have a lot of empty stores, and
when Payless goes, there will be another
one, a large one. Two stores
have just gone out. The street and
surrounding areas are full of litter,
and storekeepers put bags of garbage
and cartons near light poles. The people
who are moving into the area obviously
come from areas where sanitation
is unknown. The stores where
we knew the owners are all gone. We
have a lot of medical buildings, but no
parking provided. CVS, Modells, and
Planet Fitness have opened. There is
a sign on the building that belongs in
Times Square. Of course, there is no
parking provided either.
How sad to see this once-great
street fall into such disrepair.
Rowena Lachant
Madison
To the Editor,
I was deeply moved by Bob Capano’s
column in the Bay News (“Every
person deserves dignity in their last
days,” March 8–15), both by his concern
for his terminally ill aunt and
by the excellent care she is receiving
in the new hospice at Brooklyn–Calvary
Hospital. I share Mr. Capano’s
concern about the millions of ailing
and terminally ill people who will
never receive that kind of care or attention.
My mother died in a nursing home
in the year 2000. The home was wellkept
and nicely decorated, but, like
every other nursing home and hospital
I have ever encountered, it was underfunded
and understaffed. Patients
had to wait endlessly to be bathed or
fed because each nurse, aide, or attendant
had so many patients to care
for. I saw the same problem at the hospitals
my husband was sent to many
times during the last years of his life.
I also observed that many aides, attendants,
and volunteers were improperly
trained, or not trained at all, in
how to treat a sick, confused, frightened,
or helpless patient as a living,
breathing human being. I shall never
forget the man who suddenly grabbed
my mother’s wheelchair, with her in
it, and started racing down the hall
with it. My mother started screaming.
I grabbed the wheelchair and stopped
him and asked what he was doing.
He said he was taking my mother
to the occupational-therapy room. I
tried to explain to my mother where
she was going and wheeled her very
slowly into the therapy room. It never
seemed to occur to this obviously untrained
young man that my mother
was a living person and not a sack of
potatoes.
Our governments — state, local,
and federal — need to allocate enough
money for hospitals, nursing homes,
and hospices to hire and adequately
train sufficient staff and volunteers
to meet all the needs of the living,
breathing patients who depend upon
them. We also need free health and
preventative care for those who do
not have sufficient insurance. With
adequate, affordable healthcare, far
fewer people would wait until they
got seriously ill to seek healthcare.
In the long run, healthcare costs for
all would go way down.
Unfortunately, our wealthy president
has none of these worries and is
opposing any measures to improve
the healthcare system in our country
or to improve the polluted environment
COURIER L 46 IFE, MARCH 22–28, 2019 M BR B G
that is adding to our health
problems. I think that all Americans,
regardless of party affiliation,
must fight for better healthcare and a
cleaner environment for all.
We need a president and a Congress
who care more about our
health and our environment than
about how much money they can get
from the wealthy industrialists and
firms who are polluting our environment.
Hopefully, in 2020, the American
voters will find and elect a president
who can and will bring about
the changes America and the rest of
the world need to improve the health
and well-being of all of Earth’s citizens.
Elaine Kirsch
Gravesend
To the Editor,
Larry Penner, myself, and many
other writers — and insiders, for
that matter — have been foretelling,
for years, the harrowing problems
the subway and elevated systems
are facing. While politicians and
other officials unveil multi-billion
dollar schemes for futuristic signal
and control systems, the rest of the
supporting structures have been allowed
to deteriorate. It is no wonder
that pieces are falling off the elevated
structures. They, being in excess of a
century old, are in dire need of rehabilitation.
While politicians bicker over
funding and finger point in the never
ending blame game, the Council
Speaker, Johnson, comes up with yet
another “batty” scheme. Let the city
take over NYC Transit Authority operations.
He’s calling it “Big Apple
Transit – BAT,” but maybe it should
be “Rotten Apple Transit,” due to the
way most other city-run facilities are
failing. It’s yet another sad attempt to
fix with politics a broken system.
Johnson seemingly does not understand
the intricate history of the city’s
transportation systems. That novel
idea of a city takeover, from the turn
of the 1900s through the formation of
the MTA in the late ’60s, proved to be
an utter failure. Lack of funding, system
deterioration, and bankruptcies
forced an umbrella agency, or MTA,
to take things over and turn things
around. And now, city officials want
to repeat history by inaugurating the
same old problems once again.
New York needs a strong regional
transportation organization, able
to arrange adequate “politics-free”
funding to maintain systems and
subsystems. Remove the political
hacks on the MTA board and replace
them with the rail and bus professionals
that can achieve positive results
by making things work again.
Failing this, I guess the grumbling
of passengers will continue as they
wait for their trains and buses, hoping
nothing new falls off the Els.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Sheepshead Bay
To the Editor,
Council Speaker and 2021 mayoral
candidate Corey Johnson is correct
that City Hall can actually regain
control of the both the NYC Transit
subway and bus systems and create
his proposed “Big Apple Transit.”
All have long forgotten that buried
within the 1953 master agreement between
the city and NYC Transit is an
escape clause. New York City has the
legal right to take back at any time
control of its assets. This includes the
subway and bus systems.
In 1953, the old NYC Board of
Transportation passed on control
of the municipal subway system, including
all its assets, under a master
lease and operating agreement to the
newly created NYC Transit Authority.
Regaining total control comes
with a number of financial liabilities.
City Hall will have to negotiate with
both the governor and state Legislature
over how much of the MTA’s $40
billion long-term debt and billions
more in employee pension, health
insurance, other benefits and liabilities
come with the package. The city
would also inherit a series of union
contracts and work rule agreements.
You also have to develop a plan for
turning over management for billions
in hundreds of ongoing capital
improvement projects that are already
under way. Don’t forget current
purchases for several thousand
new subway cars and buses.
NYC Transit bus and subway are
the largest transit operators in the
nation with a fleet of 6,400 subway
and 4,400 buses. MTA bus, with a
fleet of 1,300 buses, is one of the top 10
bus operators in the nation. It is the
equivalent of attempting to manage
a Fortune 500 corporation. Does the
city have the technical capacity to
take on such an undertaking to support
creation of the new “Big Apple
Transit”?
Neither the city’s Department
of Transportation or any other city
agency has any experience in management
of either subways or buses.
Larry Penner
Great Neck