To the editor,
Your recent article about Walter, the sick pit bull puppy was offensive to Christians (“Walter is one sick puppy,” April 23). In the caption under the photo, you wrote, “Walter, a pit bull puppy, was discovered on Easter Sunday in Park Slope, but unlike the religious figure who allegedly rose on that day, he may not be resurrected without your help.”
The verbage was only necessary if it was part of a design to deliberately desecrate the beliefs of the thousands of Christians living and worshiping the risen Lord Jesus Christ within the scope of your circulation.
Your use of these words during the highest Christian Holy Days is a deliberate slap in the face to many of your readers.
As a paper, as an editor, as a writer, you have the rights — granted to you under God, and through the Constitution of this great country — to state your opinion. But as a paper, as an editor, as a writer, you should also somehow manage to have the decency to hold your personal opinions and beliefs at bay.
Using your power as a tool to degrade any people is a cowardly authoritarian act. Those words are damaging and apparently are built around an agenda. Words like these were probably seen in many publications across Europe in the 1930s, the plan then was probably very similar to yours, the results were very devastating, very horrible.
Apparently, someone in your organization, besides “Walter,” is a very sick (and dangerous) puppy!
Mike Baker, Park Slope
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To the editor,
I picked up a copy of The Brooklyn Paper at the Key Food and was quite disturbed in reading the caption under a picture of an injured pit bull.
I like animals as much as the next person, but as a Christian, I take offense against your statement under the picture.
I don’t understand how you can make a comparison between Walter’s situation and Jesus Christ in your caption, that Walter was “discovered on Easter Sunday in Park Slope — but unlike the religious figure who allegedly rose that day, he may not be resurrected withour your help.”
You could have used a better analogy that does not offend any one group of people. I strongly feel that you owe your readers an apology many of them being Christians.
Name and address
withheld
Editor’s note: There are many people who do not believe that Christ rose from the dead, so we use the term “allegedly” to describe the event in order to avoid offending non-Believers. No offense was intended toward the many people who believe in Christ’s resurrection.
‘Park’ fix?
To the editor,
Compromise is what made America great, although lately the art of compromise in America seems dead.
No one I know really wants residential development in Brooklyn Bridge Park, but most people want a Brooklyn Bridge Park that is self-supporting for maintenance, and that doesn’t rely on the whim and caprice of the government budget process (“Critics: City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park will still include housing,” online, April 27).
People keep complaining about residential development in Brooklyn Bridge Park but offer no realistic alternative. This isn’t Manhattan where corporate entities support Bryant Park and Central park, and where the public gets excluded more often then people like to admit. At times, that support has dried up too. The City can’t maintain the parks it currently has. Look at the stories you keep reporting about Prospect Park.
While residential development in the Brooklyn Bridge Park may not be my first choice, I have seen no responsible alternative. Taking money from outside the park and dedicating it to the Brooklyn Bridge Park just takes money away from schools, fire and police.
The current plan uses less than 10 percent of the parks area for residential development. So people can slap themselves on the back and say its great that the residential development is still in play, but all that does is postpone the park being built-more than before. The City’s agreement to put money into the park requires that this be resolved before the money is put in, so we can be assured of another round of delay as people sit on their hands and just say no without a viable alternative.
Sid Meyer, Boerum Hill
Get real, Parks!
To the editor,
You are so right on the money when you stated in your article (“Dead dog found in Prospect Park’s “Lake of Death,” online, April 23), “If murder, blood, arson and death was stalking Central Park, it would be an international outrage, but in Prospect Park? Nothing.”
Prospect Park should be renamed “Lawless Park,” and, once again, the Park spokesman Eugene Patron has given us another of his lame-brained excuses for the decomposed dog found in the pond. As a daily park visitor myself, I also know that particular side of the pond does not freeze over in the winter time, just as Ed Bahlman has stated in the article.
Who is Eugene Patron kidding? There are no tests done even for the park’s dead animals, get real and stop feeding us more of your lies, and enough of your ineptitudes.
What the park’s dead animal gets is a black trash bag, and it’s so shocking to know the official who is supposed to work for the park cares so little for the park and its abundant wildlife.
Mr. Bahlman, if you ever decide to run for the Park’s spokesman position, you definitely have my vote!
Susan Yuen, Kensington
Slope history
To the editor,
The deteriorating brownstone on Garfield Place, as well as the neglected and uninhabited brownstones on Third Street and Berkeley Place, provide reasons why it is imperative to expand the Park Slope Historic District (“Brownstone battle! Neighbors want to save decrepit building — from its owner!” online, April 28). Besides protecting the community from irresponsible real estate developers, being within a historic district protects residents from irresponsible owners of existing buildings.
If the Park Slope Historic District’s borders were extended so that the three uninhabited brownstones were within the district, the owners of the three buildings could be forced to prevent their brownstones from deteriorating further.
According to The Landmarks Preservation Commission Web site, “The owner of a landmarked building is responsible for maintaining the property in ‘good repair.’ ” Those who violate this regulation can be fined and/or imprisoned.
John Casson, Park Slope
