To the editor,
I lived in Dyker Heights for several years, and, during that time, ate dinner with my wife and our friends at Schnitzel Haus, on several occasions. I never noticed the picture of Donald Trump on the walls (“Yuuuuuuge news! Trump photo back at Schnitzel Haus” by Caroline Spivack, online Aug. 10), but, if I had, I would have walked out immediately.
My wife and I (who moved to Manhattan in May) still visit Bay Ridge frequently, but we will never go to Schnitzel Haus again, and I will encourage everyone I know in the area to boycott the place.
I am (German) Jewish on my mother’s side (my father was Italian Catholic.) My mother’s family escaped the Nazis and found refuge in America. I am also a woman in a same-sex marriage and an ordained interfaith minister-progressive Episcopal priest.
Trump plans policies that will cause serious discrimination toward and inequality for absolutely everyone who is not a white, wealthy, Protestant, heterosexual, American-born male with no disabilities.
He says that the internment camps used to persecute Japanese-Americans were a good thing. This is such a terrifying slippery slope. He is an aspiring dictator. Never again, and not in my precious country! If the Urbans don’t want people to think of their German restaurant as a Nazi restaurant, they will take that evil man’s picture down. He is supported by the American Nazi party and the Klu Klux Klan. Enough said.
Rev. Francesca Fortunato
Backsliding?
To the editor,
It is sad to see the declining quality of life when I am in the park seeing homeless people, young people strung out on drugs or doing drugs, playing amplified music. I could be walking in my residential neighborhood of Brooklyn seeing people openly smoking drugs or drinking, this is also the fact on the Coney Island Boardwalk.
With less attention paid to these supposedly lesser crimes, people are becoming bolder when they know they will only receive a summons. Give people an inch, then they will take a foot. It is beginning to look like the bad old days of the ’70s and ’80s again.Joseph V. Comperchio
Gravesend
Study this!
To the editor,
Looks as though the MTA is getting ready to spend millions of dollars it doesn’t have, for yet another study to bring a subway line down Utica Avenue (“Study en route for new subway line” by Julianne Cuba, online Aug. 8).
While these plans are being touted as new, this proposed subway line dates back to the early ’20s (1921) when subway and elevated lines were expanding exponentially all over the city. Since funding was never allocated it remained on the planning table through the Depression of the ’20s and ’30s.
It was again unveiled in 1949, then placed on the Bond Issues of 1951 and 1967 for both Utica and Second avenue lines. And we all know how well the Second Avenue “Stubway” is going.
Charlie Patterson, former transit chief in the 1950s, stated that, with the expansion proposals, there isn’t enough money to build and equip the new lines as well as maintain the crumbling infrastructure of existing lines. He said point-blank, “The rest of the system wouldn’t be worth the price of powder to blow it to hell with.”
It is nice to have dreams of expansion but with a country once again on the heels of another great recession, I would think that these plans be put aside and the money spent to keep existing lines afloat.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
D’ohT
To the editor,
I don’t know why the outrage, of course you didn’t expect the city’s Department of Transportation for any input from the community regarding the placing of the meters on semi-residential blocks in Bay Ridge (“Fed up! Locals, pols ticked over new parking meters” by Caroline Spivack, online Aug. 4).
NYC gets its jollies from harassing drivers with its so-called traffic-calming, congestion-causing ideas in the name of its “vision zero,” which by the way has a zero chance of success when you take into account that most bicyclists disobey almost every law on the books, without consequence, causing their own accidents and, sometimes, demise. And sad to say many pedestrians have the same “I am above the law” mentality. Getting back to the DOT, recently, it installed more CitiBike docking stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
Some people in these areas went ballistic over the lost on-street parking. I am sure by now there are hundreds of parking spaces being taken up by this program citywide, maybe more. Oh, again from what I read, no community input prior to these bike stations being installed.
So as long as we have DeBlasio, [DOT commissioner Polly] Trottenberg, and Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, there is no hope that any of the above-mentioned situations will change, only be exacerbated.Richard Hecht
Bay Ridge
• • •
To the editor,
Third Avenue between 81st and 82nd streets recently had meters put in where before there were none. I was leaving Boston Market today and saw this listing on a sign:
“No parking 8:30 to 10 am” with a picture of a broom. I understand that. What I don’t understand is why the city felt it necessary to add “meters not in effect during this time period.”
It reads like I can park there 8:30 to 10 and avoid the meter. But if I do then I’ll get ticketed by Sanitation because I am impeding street cleaning.
By the way, the comment in the recent article about businesses wanting more turnover on spaces sounds contrived (“Fed up! Locals, pols ticked over new parking meters” by Caroline Spivack, online Aug. 4). Business on Third Avenue have been doing well before this nonsense started.
It is just another way for the city to raise money by the meters and the issuing of tickets.Tom De Francesco
Bay Ridge
Trump card
To the editor,
I totally agree with Tom Allon that a Trump dynasty is not in the cards (“Dreaming of a Trump dynasty” by Tom Allon, online Aug. 6), especially with Donald self-destructing before our very eyes.
A closer view of post-WWII presidential elections will reveal that the Democrats have an edge they have been cultivating for a century. The term “Democratic machine” was established to depict, that by hook or crook, Democrats will control America, even though the record shows that liberal policies have been disastrous for the country. Consider that in the 1960 Kennedy–Nixon election there were more votes than registered voters in key districts of Illinois and Texas. Illinois was Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s territory, and Texas was Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson’s territory. The two states combined to provide JFK with the victory — without those 51 electoral votes, Kennedy would have lost.
There is current talk amongst GOP leadership to find a way of ousting Donald Trump so as to maintain the GOP platform, which is pretty cynical. In reality, the main platform is similar for both parties, which is to stay in office, regardless of what happens to the country. Once money is offered for doing nothing, freeloading becomes a way of life — and if one is a politician he/she can enact laws and policies to stay in office and continue their goldbrick habits.
So, via their brainwashing of little children to make them accept all cultures, to help those who are unwilling to help themselves, to enact laws that help criminals and terrorists, we have the current America — void of patriotism, common sense, and moral compass. This is Hillary Clinton’s America.
Trump’s America is totally different. That people dislike him is their right according to our constitution. Why do they dislike him? Well, Trump offended some people, Trump argued with the father of an American soldier who was used by Democrats to bait him, and on and on. So what? Those who have served in our military know what “prime objective” means: To accomplish your mission with secondary objectives to ensure the safety of your team and of yourself — in that order.
With a 50-year decline in American culture, values and safety, Trump’s prime objective is twofold: America’s safety by fighting Islamic terrorists and securing our southern border. Hillary’s prime objective is power and money, money, and more money donated to the Clinton’s slush fund, a.k.a. the Clinton Foundation.
Voters need to focus on the primary objective and nothing else.
Elio Valenti
Bay Ridge
