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To the editor,

I was very disappointed by your article, “This old house: restored” (Brooklyn Heights/Downtown edition, May 19). I don’t know why you had to resort to making fun of the former owner of the house.

The fire that damaged the house was a tragedy. The couple that lived in the house lost a lot of prized possessions as well as the home. They are truly wonderful people, they always remember birthdays, have fascinating stories about the changing neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights and are always willing to lend a helping hand with a sewing project or repairing a window.

If we had more people like them in this neighborhood and the world it would be a much better place.

As a community paper, you should know that the buildings of this neighborhood are very important and need to be respected and protected. But we also need to treat the lives within the buildings the same way.

Jill Bigelow, Brooklyn Heights

Respect the Park

To the editor,

Millions of people come to Prospect Park each year, and many of them enjoy picnics at designated picnic areas, as well as on the beautiful meadows, and under the shade of the Park’s nearly 40,000 trees. To help keep the park beautiful for everyone, we rely on our patrons to dispose of trash in the proper receptacles and to always clean up after themselves.

Nica Lalli, in her column “Blue Monday in a dirty park” (Park Slope edition, May 19), apparently chose to view picnicking in the Park through the narrow lens of a Monday in the early morning hours before Park crews have made their rounds to empty trashcans and clean up.

By midday every Monday, almost all the trash cans in the Park have been serviced. We start first with playgrounds and then move to other areas in the Park. We purposely do not schedule or allow major events in the Park on Mondays so we can devote our attention to cleaning up the Park. In summer months, we engage additional seasonal crews who actually begin some cleanup on weekend evenings.

Ms. Lalli is incorrect to attribute to the Prospect Park Alliance and its spokesman any suggestion that the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation does not devote significant funds to trash cleanup and collection in city parks.

The Parks Department and the Alliance take keeping Prospect Park clean very seriously, and put considerable resources toward trash collection and Park maintenance.

Tupper Thomas, Park Slope

The writer is administrator of the Prospect Park Alliance

Nica was right!

To the editor,

Nica Lalli hit the nail on the head when she wrote about the garbage in Prospect Park on Mondays.

I live on Ninth Street, and the garbage has a tendency to flow out and down. Some suggestions: Maybe we should not allow any BBQ’ing in the park, since people don’t know how to contain their garbage.

Or, maybe, we should make them take it with them, instead of leaving it behind in the mess that it is left behind in. They bring their goods in shopping carts, so they should be able to take their garbage out with them.

The rule about the size of the groups should also be enforced. Some groups are larger than 20. Why are there rules for some, but not for others?

Joanne Hindy, Park Slope

Nica was wrong!

To the editor,

When Nica Lalli taked about Prospect Park as “Chicken Bone season,” she was using a racist context and ethnic sterotyping. The term “Chicken Bone season” is straight out of slavery, and the unequal treatment of people of color.

Everyone knows that there was a time when African-Americans along with Jews, and dogs, were not allowed to eat in establishments in the South, so African-Americans had to carry shoeboxes in cars, on trains and on buses, with chicken in them.

So the term “Chicken Bone season” really has an unacceptable negative connotation of slavery and racism.

If you visit the park, and you know the picnic area in question is used by a large number of Hispanics and African-Americans. Lalli should know that people who are not allowed to make a decent living will buy the cheapest meat and poultry, which in this case, is pork and chicken.

I expect a retraction and apology of this article.

James T. Reives, Park Slope

©2007 Community Newspaper Group