EDITORIAL Letters to the Editor
Tech check
Don’t ‘L’-ose momentum
To The Editor:
Re ‘Post-‘L-pocalypse’” (editorial, Feb. 14)
I fi nd The Villager’s editorial on the post-L-train
“shutdown” hugely confusing…frustrating, too.
New York City is America’s greatest pedestrian
city, and — after an eternity of insidious Moses-ism
— is re-imagining that title, with spectacular transit
and foot-and-bike-centered improvements unspooling
everywhere across 14th St. and around Union
Square.
The former L-train shutdown has provided a
once-in-our-lifetimes opportunity to further rethink
the outdated notion that city streets are for autos
alone.
Many smart, engaged people have weighed in,
and many proposals have already been acted upon.
These enhancements — wider sidewalks, curbside
management systems, bike lanes and dedicated bus
lanes — must remain permanent parts of our urban
lives, not temporary “survival” mechanisms.
Why The Villager advocates “restarting this whole
process” with yet more meetings and sign waving
remains mysterious.
As one of the 90-plus percent of Manhattanites
who do not commute by car, I do not want to see
these improvements to our lives retracted. I prefer
not to live in a dystopian fantasy of automobiles for
all. This is not only a question of public safety and
fairness — I do pay taxes to use my streets, after all
— but a question of who these streets belong to.
I urge my neighbors, colleagues, elected offi cials,
local business improvement districts and those who
love our community to continue improving 14th St.,
and our shared quality of life, which unfolds every
hour of every day on a grid of pathways developed in
1811 — before the car had even been imagined.
David Koch
Taylor’s lasting legacy
To The Editor:
Re “Jack Taylor, 93, preserved Ladies Mile, Tammany”
Jack Taylor never asked for credit. He just tirelessly
pressed for preserving the city’s precious stock
of old elegant buildings, and we owe a great deal
to his generous unfl agging advocacy. I always saved
his handwritten letters, which told me that he just
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wasn’t impressed with technology progress. He was
content to quietly fi ght the battles his way. He was
a relentless crusader and will be much missed. But
I will see him every time I pass one of the buildings
he worked so hard to preserve.
Joanna Underwood
Underwood is president, E. 13th St. Community Association
Jack gave ’em hell
To The Editor:
Re “Jack Taylor, 93, preserved Ladies Mile, Tammany”
Jack’s mailed envelopes smelled of cigarette
smoke. Since he was avidly working on preservation
projects, I knew it was more hellfi re in the works.
Carol Schachter
Where does ‘growth’ stop?
To The Editor:
Re “Housing and classrooms vs. Noho zoning
gridlock” (viewpoint, by Eric Kober, Feb. 21):
This article seeks to make a case for endless expansion,
but the question becomes where does it
stop? Soho and Noho are low-density areas well fed
by the transportation services mentioned. Does that
mean we should promote growth for growth’s sake
and give up low density? I’m certain the number of
people who already use the transportation this author
cites — and calls “a striking example of a failure
to update land-use policy in furtherance of these
priorities” — far exceeds what the 1800s subway
builders had in mind as maximum ridership. And
is growth one of “these priorities” as a sought-after
community good?
Otto Barz
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(obituary, Feb. 21):
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LINCOLN ANDERSON
The shocking collapse of the Amazon deal has
been the big story for the past two weeks. And
its reverberations will continue to resound into
the foreseeable future.
Twenty-fi ve thousand high-paying jobs at the
planned Amazon HQ2 in Long Island City, plus a
projected $27 billion in revenue for the city over time,
have been lost, as a result.
On the other hand, Amazon won’t enjoy the $3 billion
in tax incentives it was promised by Governor
Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. (Again,
as new Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
failed to grasp, that money does not actually currently
exist to be given to other worthy causes.)
Polls say most New Yorkers favored the deal, believing
it would boost the economy in the surrounding
area and for the city, in general. But critics, for
their part, argued that Amazon’s presence would just
spark gentrifi cation, ultimately pushing out lower-income
residents and struggling mom-and-pop shops.
One big factor that turned local politicians against
the Bezos behemoth was that this deal was done
behind closed doors. But deals reached out of the
public eye and without community input invariably
breed distrust and opposition. Look no further than
the Elizabeth St. Garden. It was under former Mayor
Mike Bloomberg that the city and Councilmember
Margaret Chin earmarked the Little Italy green oasis
for housing. Community Board 2, as this page has
pointed out before, was not consulted — or even notifi
ed of the plan — before the decision was made. The
garden’s fate will now likely be decided in court.
Also, it bears mentioning that, unlike Amazon,
Google has not received any tax breaks for the extensive
offi ce space it has already created in Chelsea
over the past decade or so and which it plans to create
on Pier 57 and in Hudson Square. Google is soon set
to have somewhere more than 20,000 jobs total in
Downtown Manhattan.
Clearly, Amazon did not need — or deserve — billions
in tax breaks to come here. Because they’re Amazon,
they demanded it. Ultimately, it backfi red.
But there is an even-larger debate for our area, in
our view, one that we saw rage last year in the push
— ultimately unsuccessful — for zoning protections
around the planned “Tech Hub” on E. 14th St.
Local residents and preservationists, like Andrew
Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society
for Preservation, have been raising the alarm about
“tech spread” and its impacts. Berman notes much of
the recent surge of commercial development Downtown
seems to be driven by the tech industry.
This could be appropriate in Hudson Square —
where the old St. John’s Terminal is being vertically
enlarged for Google. But not at St. Mark’s and Third
Ave., where an offi ce tower is planned for the former
Continental bar/McDonald’s site. Broadway south of
Union Square is also being aggressively targeted by
builders, some for tech fi rms. In many of these areas,
the zoning dates back 60 years to when these properties
were warehouses, book binderies and such.
Tech wants to be in nontraditional places for offi
ces — diverse, 24/7, offbeat, mixed-use neighborhoods,
like the Village area. In the end, the key is not
to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. New zoning
protections can at least help preserve what’s left of
Downtown’s cherished and unique character.
12 February 28, 2019 TVG Schneps Media
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