Tribeca's trees need caretakers; Remove lights from Citibank trees
To the Editor:
I want to let Trib readers know that the Friends of Greenwich Street’s Tribeca Street Trees project is moving along nicely. At last count, Tribeca has 618 living street trees, up from 494 two years ago. In these two years, new street tree canopy equal to more than the area of Washington Market Park now shields Tribeca from the summer sun, reducing the urban heat island effect and improving our air quality.
As part of the project, we have matched a “care giver” to 273 (44%) of our street trees. And, we’re looking for stewards for the other 345 street trees that are still fending for themselves.
If you’d like to help take care of a street tree or get involved, please send an email to volunteer@friendsofgreenwichstreet.org or write us at 295 Greenwich St. #247, NY, NY 10007. Tribeca will be the greener for it.
Steven Boyce
President, Friends of Greenwich Street
To the Editor:
Every dark morning for the last five or six years at least, I see the trees along Greenwich Street between N. Moore and Hubert Streets lit like it’s still Christmas. Whether it’s April or July or October or February, the lights remain, strangling the trees.
Is it possible to convince Citibank to remove these lights? (I have tried for 15 years with different maintenance men and once or twice, they did remove the lights for a few months.)
Here’s what the lights are doing:
1. Killing 20 or more of our precious, much-needed trees.
2. Wasting electricity.
3. Substituting the natural light of evening and dawn with fakery.
I hope neighbors will see this same travesty and complain.
With summer coming, it will be so pleasant to sit or walk outside or in the tiny park in front of Citibank without the intrusion of bright lights.
We don’t need more commercialism or 42nd Street Downtown.
Ellen W. Lytle
A thumbs down on new J.Crew store
To the Editor:
I read in the April Tribeca Trib that the mega-mall staple that suburbanites love, J.Crew, is coming to our neighborhood.
As a resident of Tribeca for more than five years, I have enjoyed much of the commercial influx to the area. I applauded the opening of Barnes & Noble as we had lacked a book store presence Downtown and I applauded its location below Chambers Street.
There are J.Crews all over the city... but a J.Crew at the famed old Liquor Store location! I pray it isn’t true.
I would welcome a clothing store in that space—but a clothing store with some soul, some integrity and some personality. Not a rubber stamp of the American mall on one of the charmed blocks in the city. I fear the mall-ization of Soho is seeping our way.
What’s next? Baby Gap pushes out the Odeon? I call on the Tribeca Trib and her readers to protest what I fear is a looming commercialization of the best neighborhood in Manhattan.
Nostalgic for North Moore,
Lindsay Bucha
Giving credit to those who helped build the community center
To The Editor:
I want to thank the Tribeca Trib for its splendid article last month on the process of opening Manhattan Youth’s downtown community center and the online video of the opening party of the center.
The article interviewed some of our staff members, but I must add that others who worked so hard and for so many years did not get reported.
It was a large team effort. I am sure there will be other opportunities for readers to see their great work in future issues.
Finally, many people stop me and ask about what programs will take place and when they will open. May I suggest that readers click onto www.Manhattanyouth.org and sign up for our email blasts?
They should also stay tuned to the Tribeca Trib.
Bob Townley
Director, Manhattan Youth
Thanks for historic photo and story
To the Editor:
Thank you for the excellent article “When Varick Street was Widened” by Oliver E. Allen and the wonderful accompanying picture in your last issue. The photo of New Yorkers watching the building of the subway is an excellent example of the old adage “One picture is worth a thousand words.”
Robert Gluckstadt
Photo is a reminder of the origins of the city’s transit system
To the Editor:
“When Varick Street Was Widened” by Oliver E. Allen in April’s Trib was a great trip down memory lane of transit history.
The original BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Rapid Transit—today’s B, D, J, M, N, Q, R, W and Z lines) and IRT (Interboro Rapid Transit—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Franklin Ave. and Times Square shuttles) subway systems were constructed by the private sector under franchise agreements with the city. They supported both development and economic growth of numerous neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. As part of the franchise agreement which owners had to sign, City Hall had direct control over the fare structure. For a period of time, owners actually made a profit with a five-cent fare.
After two decades, the costs of salaries, maintenance, power, supplies and equipment would pressure owners to ask City Hall for permission to raise the fares. This additional revenue was needed to maintain a good state of repair, increase the frequency of service, purchase new subway cars, pay employee salary increases and support planned system expansion.
Politicians more interested in the next reelection (and subscribing to the old Roman philosophy of free bread and circuses) refused this request each year for well over a decade. As a result, in order to survive, owners of both systems began looking elsewhere to reduce costs and stay in business. They started curtailing basic maintenance, delayed purchases of new subway cars, postponed salary increases for employees, canceled plans for system expansion and cut corners to survive.
In the 1930s, New York City began building and financing construction of the new IND (Independent Subway—today’s A, C, E, F and G lines). This new municipal system directly subsidized by taxpayers dollars would provide direct competition to both the IRT and BMT. Municipal government forced them into economic ruin by denying them fare increases that would have provided access to additional badly needed revenues. Eventually they made them an offer they couldn’t refuse and the owners folded and sold out to City Hall.
You have to admire the brave private sector entrepreneurs who operate the remaining handful of buses, commuter vans, ferries and pedicabs who somehow survive in today’s anti-free-market transportation provider environment.
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Three steps to getting rid of junk mail
To the Editor:
Here is a sure way to get rid of junk mail forever and it won’t cost a cent.
1. Catalogues: Tear off the cover with your name and address on it. Call the toll-free 800 number listed inside and tell the clerk that you want your name to be removed from their mailing list. Real simple. It takes about two months. It never fails.
2. Junk letters: Most of these junk letters have enclosures and a postage paid envelope for your reply. Stuff everything into the postage paid envelope and mail it with “Remove from mailing list” marked in large print. No business wants to pay the high postage rates for nothing. It works.
3. Sometimes I even send back junk letters even if I have to put a stamp on them. To me, it’s worth it. I have a long list of junk mail that I never receive anymore. It’s good for the mailman too and he’ll have less to distribute.
Susan Smpadian
Tribeca
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