To the editor,
I am a resident of Trump Village and am amazed that you have not been flooded with letters regarding the closing of the Trump Village shopping center. A developer who bought the land has decided that a condo is a much better idea than a shopping center. There are already approximately 15 buildings in the area, and the shopping center accommodates literally thousands of people, many of whom are retirees and disabled. They cannot get to other places to shop, and the closing will make life intolerable.
One of the selling features of the community is the convenient shopping, well that will certainly be gone. There will be no where to bank, have a prescription filled, or even get a slice of pizza. This developer has something called “as of right,” which means he can come in without prior notice and close everything down and start building. Because of this, most of the community does not even know this is happening.
It’s pretty sad when people’s livelihood is taken away from them without a thought, and disrupting the lives of so many people means nothing. E. Berger
Trump Village
Obama’s JV
To the editor
The Obama administration is weak on terror.
If we cannot even define our enemies, how can we defeat them? Makes you wonder if its ISIS or this administration that is the real junior varsity.
Joseph Connor
Glen Rock, N.J.
Community partners
To the editor,
It’s wonderful to hear that the Parks Department and the Prospect Park Alliance appointed Sue Donoghue as the new head of the Prospect Park Alliance (“Changing of the guard at Prospect Park Alliance,” Sept 19).
Let’s not forget that Southern Brooklyn has the Coney Island Alliance, and Friends of Kaiser Park-Alliance of Calvert Vaux Park. Next, we will be adding the Seaside Park and Community Art Center to the wonderful world of Coney Island.
As an educator and community education advocate in Coney Island, I always admired all of the amazing cultural and educational initiatives spearheaded by the Prospect Park Alliance. Let’s talk about initiating a collaboration between the Prospect Park Alliance, Coney Island Alliance, Friends of Kaiser Park-Alliance of Calvert Vaux Park, and the Seaside Park and Community Art Center.
We will be bringing the best of Brooklyn’s culture and education together. Our schools will now have additional community partners in Brooklyn’s education.Scott Krivitsky
The writer is a teacher at PS 188 in Coney Island
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‘Amazing’ hospital
To the editor,
I want the world to know that the staff at Coney Island Hospital is amazing. My mom went to the emergency room and began treatment that I can only describe as the epitome of medical care.
She was admitted and sent to Tower Three West where every single staff member treated her like she was their only patient.
I was kept updated and informed about every aspect of her treatment and care.
I know that it doesn’t take too much to bring negative commentary about a facility, but to reverse that reputation is a daunting task.
I am spreading the word that this is the best hospital I have experienced. Everyone is to be commended, and I mean everyone.
My mission is to spread the word that if God forbid you need to go to the hospital, go to Coney Island!
Judith Mandiberg
Sheepshead Bay
Looters beware
To the editor,
To the residents of 51st Street in Sunset Park, just because the utility companies, government agencies and private contractors, who did work on the block which required using the orange barricades and cones, were negligent in cleaning up their equipment after they completed their work, it does not give you the right to just grab those items for your own personal use.
They do not belong to you. They are not to be used to preserve parking spaces for your friends or whatever other purposes you use them for. That is illegal.
As for the agencies involved, clean up your mess. There are a bunch of these orange things strewn on the block. Come and pick up your trash.
I am speaking for my block only, but this problem is widespread around the city.Steve Yanowsky
Sunset Park
Bill DeBlah-sio
To the editor,
Has our current mayor slipped into his dotage? How can he possibly justify Rachel Noerdlinger continuing as chief of staff to wife Chirlane McCray, after it was revealed that her live-in boyfriend served time in prison and attacked police on Facebook? We did not elect Chirlaine McCray, and allowing her aides to sit in on meetings regarding police work when she has a boyfriend beneath contempt is not the way to go.
The mayor is also practicing a double standard by allowing his son to have a cell phone in school. No wonder Brooklyn Technical High School looks away when students come in with their cell phones. Other schools don’t do that, and rightfully so. Schools in general have enough distractions to contend with, due to the complete lack of discipline in so many of them. They don’t need the added addition of cell phones.
Our mayor is allowing his very liberal views to cloud his judgment. Keep this up and he will join the late Abe Beame as a one-term mayor.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Peace department
To the editor,
Prior to 1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler, thinking by signing a peace agreement war would be avoided. Little did the prime minister or the German people know about Hitler’s true intentions — starting World War II. In 1941 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor America joined the war. So the only way to defeat both Germany and Japan would be hard power. As we’ve now seen hard power doesn’t work. What hard power does is create anger that affects people worldwide.
The question one must ask is why wealthy young adults shun privilege and feel an attraction to groups that want to hurt and kill people. I read the article about teenage girls in Austria wanting to take up arms against many countries. So instead of using hard power that doesn’t work, we should consider soft power. Instead of spending billions for arms we should think of peaceful means.
When the former Soviet Union took control of East Germany after World War II and put a blockade on the people, the Americans decided to airlift needed food and supplies to the East Germans. That was soft power.
History has taught us if we do the right thing we not only save lives, but we also develop friendship that have an everlasting affect. Hopefully we learn not make the same mistakes over and over again,
Instead of having a war department, why not a peace department? During the Northern Ireland conflict with Great Britain, women from both sides were tired of losing their husbands, sons, and daughters, and they realized that peace would be won when each women said, “Enough” to the killings. They put their own lives on the line to achieve this goal. I think we aught to learn a valuable lesson from these women.Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
Going your way
To the editor,
The New York City Transit Museum’s antique bus display at the recent Atlantic Antic festival was a great trip down memory lane. It was a time when bus drivers had to make change and drive, at the same time. No one dared bring any food on the bus or leave any litter behind.
In the mid 1960s, air-conditioned buses were just becoming a more common part of the fleet. You had to pay separate fares to ride either the bus or subway.
There were no MetroCards affording free transfers between bus and subway, along with discounted weekly or monthly fares.
Employee transit checks to help cover the costs didn’t exist.
Fast forward to today, and you can see how public transportation is still one of the best bargains in town.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Sar-sore activist
To the editor,
Once again, Linda Sarsour is causing dissent in our neighborhood (“Crazed vagrant threatens to behead Arab community leader,” online Sept. 9). She couldn’t have an incident and just let the NYPD handle it. No, she had to get her name splashed all over the place as usual. Sarsour has a habit of coming to the fore every few years, and it’s always about how the poor Muslims, this time herself, are being treated here in Bay Ridge. As usual, she just doesn’t understand why. So I’ll try again.
I have so many Muslims that I do love and care for, none of whom hate my country or my flag, so this letter is hard for me to write because I wouldn’t want to hurt a single hair on their heads. Actually I love many of them and they know it.
Until Sept. 11, 2001, myself and everyone I knew lived a mostly decent life. For the most part, we feared nothing. We woke up, did our day thing, came home, and went to bed. Never gave Muslims a thought. On Sept. 11, being as I was on Church Street at the World Trade Center, all of a sudden, I’m getting Muslims forced down my throat. They don’t like this, they don’t like that, they won’t take liquor or dogs in their cabs, etc. etc. etc. After I was rescued from certain death (I went into shock upon seeing the second plane hit) I walked up to Broadway and Dey Street, and was greeted by smiling, happy Muslims. I was devastated and they were happy! I returned to Bay Ridge at 6 pm, after having walked from the World Trade Center to 57th and Madison for the express bus. When I went to get off the bus on 69th Street, I hesitated. I was in a neighborhood filled with Muslims — of the same faith as the people who had just rammed two giant airliners into the World Trade Center. I later found out that they were celebrating the deaths of thousands of our people only one block away. I remember weeks later walking on Fifth Avenue and passing a woman with area rugs with pictures of the burning towers! I glared at her. She just smiled while selling one to a passing Muslim. A ball gown store on Third Avenue was gone. Several other Muslim stores were gone. Poof! Just like that.
My life and those of my loved ones, friends and acquaintances had changed forever, and Muslims are the cause of it all. It took me a long time to realize that all Muslims were not alike. Years. But Sarsour causes trouble, and I have no patience for people like her. If you don’t like it here, if our NYPD doesn’t come fast enough for you, you could leave and go anywhere else in the world. But you won’t. You have it too good here. You folks don’t like our flag or our culture, but you sure love our benefits. If we went to your country, would your people treat us as good as you are treated here? Not on your life.
No one in this country wears masks. In my 70 years on this earth, the only people who wore masks were super heroes. No one walked the street masked. Now, I see your women, or I think they are women under there, eyes only can be seen. You can’t tell what’s under that mask. That could be a man. There could be a rifle or an Uzi. Who would know? I think that benefits should be halted immediately. Under the current circumstances with all these maniacal terrorists running around killing, beheading etc., the time for being tolerant to these customs must stop. I don’t care what the unity task force thinks. I think its members are terribly misguided. The only people who agree with them are those who attend those meetings. The rest of us don’t. You are in the minority.
Then there is the subject of Muslim women. They are supposed to be pure. Can’t be alone in a room with a man who is not husband or family. So many of them run around in skin-tight clothing wearing tons of makeup. What’s up with that?
I am really tired of all the complaining that comes from Sarsour and her ilk. Just do what we do. Just live your life in this beautiful country that gives so much. Stop trying to change it. We don’t want our country to change. That’s another big problem we have with people who complain all the time.
If you don’t like it here, please leave. We don’t need any more stress that people like Linda Sarsour give us.
Diane Hunt
Bay Ridge
