Dear Editors: I must comment on something about which I feel most strongly: the quality and depth of WestView News’ coverage. In order to economically survive the impact that email, digital media, and video have had on their bottom lines, media outlets have been wallowing in trivia, desperately reaching out to a (perceived) newer audience.
-
-
Praise for WestView
Dear Editors: Thanks so much for seeing merit in my “Seniorhood” piece for the May issue of WestView. It is beautifully laid out, giving it the feel of a true prose poem. I happen to have a large number of ‘oldster’ friends and most identified with the writing; they got a sort of serious chuckle
-
Mobile Stroke Care Innovation
Dear Editors: Thank you for your continuing focus on health care issues in our community! A short time after attending the May 4th meeting announced by Arthur Z. Schwartz in WestView News, to discuss the crisis in our area’s health care, I went to Weill Cornell Medical Center on York Avenue to hear a talk,
-
Many Thanks for My Ziedonis Article
Dear Editors: Thank you very much for my article on Ziedonis. Everything is fine, and the layout looks great. I have had quite a few compliments not only on the article, but on your paper as well, which was unfamiliar to most of my friends and acquaintances. —Bitite Vinklers P.S. Maybe you should have a
-
The Cyber Hand in Your Pocket
By George Capsis I recently opened this email…“CHASE FRAUD PROTECTION SERVICES: Please tell us if you, or somebody you authorized, charged your card for: Navy Yard Gas $96.85.” On this day, the cyber crooks went right around the globe from the U.S. to China and Russia with sweeping electronic speed and the exquisite arrogance of
-
Washington Square Park Designer Nabs Dual Role
By Geoffrey Croft The irony. George Vellonakis, the controversial NYC Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC Parks) landscape architect behind the much-vilified $30 million renovation of Washington Square Park, has recently been appointed to head the historic park. On May 15th, Vellonakis became the Washington Square Park Administrator, a City job, as well as the
-
Praising George Vellonakis and Washington Square Park
By Barry Benepe With all due respect to Geoffrey Croft, I feel that we are fortunate to have George Vellonakis in charge of the design and maintenance of Washington Square Park, probably one of the most heavily utilized and historic parks in the City. Through careful and thoughtful research on the park’s original 1836 design,
-
Notes and Perspectives From Away: Republican Democracy
By Tom Lamia From early January to mid-April of this year, I was in New York having a knee repaired. My surgery was on January 20th, the day that politics and governance took a new direction. Every day since has brought something new for discussion, with no one sure where it is all headed. Your
-
Trump and the Saudi Connection
By Gary Tomei Trump recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and told the Saudis that they are our friends, even though they espouse a type of Islam, known as Wahhabism, which essentially preaches hatred of America and promotes Jihadism. Trump made this connection even though the Saudis are, in fact, the leading promoters of terrorism in
-
Caruso’s Quips
By Charles Caruso Cityscape: No curtains, ladder against a wall. Someone’s gone, someone new is coming. ___ Everyone rewrites his life into a form he can live with. ___ Immigrant’s progress: from blue collar to white collar to no collar. ___ Spring is a promise summer doesn’t keep. ___ Where Hamlet got his furs: Rosencrantz
-
A Generous Contribution
Dear George: I was moved by the news in your April 2017 piece “Shall We End WestView?” that Amelia Vinal donated 10 free subscriptions to those in need. I decided to offer the same and so I donated $240 through the website, and also purchased a subscription for myself. —Eduardo Cavalcanti
-
Keep WestView in the Village
Please, George, keep WestView in the West Village. If I want to know what’s going on with Trump, there are 24/7 news channels. Stay focused on the people and businesses in OUR neighborhood. —Doug Douglass Doug, You have just echoed a phrase I use very often in production meetings: “Keep WestView focused on the West
-
Thanking Mr. Diller
Dear Mr. Capsis: In my opinion, the words you are seeking for Mr. Diller are “Thank you very much for the generous gift to our community and the City as a whole.” We are West Village residents and 100% behind the Pier 55 project. We honestly do not understand the small (but vocal) minority opposed.
-
Countering Trump Support
Dear George: You were saintly in your patient response to poor, lonely, lashing out Mr. Gianfalla. He writes that he “survived four years of a university” but obviously never learned research skills or he would know that his claim that “[h]alf of America disagrees” with your views regarding Trump is false; the latest poll shows
-
The Freedom to Criticize
Dear Editors: I have been trying to avoid responding to every letter written by ignoramus Trump supporters, but the incredible stupidity and audacity of Mark Gianfalla, who wrote to WestView excoriating the paper for its opposition to the incompetent, lying, so-called President Trump, set my blood boiling. His bold assertion that Trump is the President
-
Compliments for Tom Lamia
Dear Editors: I wanted to compliment you on the addition of Tom Lamia’s Notes and Perspectives From Away column. I enjoy his writing style and his message has resonated with me. There are many in the Village who have, or continue to, split their lives with small town/rural communities. Lamia’s column is valuable for those
-
Fighting Community Blight
Dear Editors: I’m a regular reader of WestView and someone who hasn’t really participated in local politics. Your newspaper has made me more aware of meaningful ways to get involved in the community. Thank you for that. I am forwarding you a note (with slight edits) that I sent our council members a few weeks
-
Opposing the PeopleWay
Dear Editors: Paul Steely White’s effort to defend his indefensible proposal for the deceptively named “PeopleWay” on 14th Street, published in the April issue of WestView, ignores the desires and needs of the large majority of people who would be most directly affected. First, it is incredibly short-sighted to think that “buses, biking and walking”
-
Bike Sharing Programs Highlight Need to Realign Transportation Priorities
On April 6, 2017, the New York Post reported that at least five bike sharing companies (competitors to Citi Bike) are attempting to distribute their bikes on City streets without docking stations. This had City officials up in arms and led Transportation Alternatives (a non-profit focused on improving the City’s transportation priorities) to urge the
-
Valid Anxiety in West Village Residents About Heart Attack Care
“There are clear deficiencies in our health care system. It fails the test of providing universal coverage but beyond that, the major problem is the extremely high cost. It is cost ineffective—prohibitively so. I personally attribute much of this enormous expense to waste, fraud, and to the unchecked cost of drugs and medical devices.” It
-
Slipping Into the Hood—Seniorhood
By Roberta Curley You’re getting old when… You start craving ginger ale before bedtime AND find the burping an addictive pleasure. Your back itches and you worry it’s shingles. You’ve graduated to 3.0 for readers and there’s nowhere to leap but to prescription. Your stomach leads you everywhere like a ballooning compass. You buy shopping
-
Caruso’s Quips
By Charles Caruso Everyone wants to go to Heaven but no one wants to die. ___ Sunrise doesn’t start the day. Coffee does. ___ Dogs are nicer than people—better dispositions, more loyal. ___ Mourn the victim but pity the shooter. Imagine the hell the poor devil went through before he cracked. ___ In a season
-
PeopleWay Traffic Solution—Move
Some time ago, we published a photo of Charles Street taken in the 1930s where there was only one car parked—just one. Now, we have a fierce debate about banning private cars from 14th Street and reserving it for crosstown buses and bike lanes to replace the L Train. There is even talk about widening
-
WestView Fan
Dear Editors: West Villagers (even some northerners and southerners) are burning up my phone lines to get a copy of the March 2017 issue of WestView. Your paper has ‘people power’ and packs a punch. I am pleased and honored to be a part of this ‘free’ (in all senses of the word) press. WestView
-
Traumatized by Trump Trauma
Below, we feature an exchange between WestView reader Mark Gianfalla and Publisher George Capsis concerning the paper’s treatment of the Trump presidency. Dear Editors: I am writing as an active resident of the West Village and one (of the few) who reads WestView News when it is left in my building. I am often disturbed
-
Graffiti: A Cry for Recognition
Have you ever seen a person spray graffiti on a wall? I have seen it only once and it involved three obviously rich private school boys around 12 years old who sprayed the concrete dividers on the West Side Highway to demonstrate that they were no longer kids. But few people ever see the graffiti
-
Mom Knows Best
I’ve been writing about politics to my son, about this and that issue, and thought a recent letter may interest WestView News. —Marilyn Schwartz Hi Son, I didn’t know who Paul Rino was so, from Wikipedia, I discovered that ‘Rino’ is a stand-in for ‘Rhinoceros’ which means, in Republican lingo, a bad, no-good Republican.
-
Fighting for Autism Care
I don’t even like to think about it—having a child with autism, a constant living source of pain—yet Margie Dienstag has found courage and purpose in her fight for her son and has joined with others. At a recent meeting, where she was the very last to speak to the Mayor, she told a horror
-
Shall We End WestView?
“Why don’t people support the paper with an ad?” “Why don’t they send us a lousy 12 bucks for a subscription?” You are reading my darker thoughts which, against Managing Editor Andreea’s “Don’t do that, George” caution, I offered in a house ad last month. In that ad, I asked the question: Shall we end
-
Savvy Shopper’s Feedback
Buying coffee at McNulty’s, I was surprised to see a handwritten sign reading “Colombian coffee $90/lb.” I asked if anyone was buying it and was told, “Yes, it works out to about $3.00 per cup.” The coffee plants come to Colombia from Ethiopia. —Barbara Chacour
-
HOSPITAL RESPONDS TO EXPLOSIVE GROWTH
Chief Operating Officer Robert Guimento (left) began his presentation of the “new” New York Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital by documenting the boom in Lower Manhattan apartment construction and population growth; the latter has more than doubled in the past 15 years. During their meeting, WestView Publisher George Capsis explored the possibility of adding a Cath Lab
-
Look At My Art! Look At Me!
Philosopher Susanne Langer explained that art was a language, and she was right. If I listen to the introduction to a classical music piece from Paris on my satellite radio, I can just about get the drift in French and catch the composer’s name. When the music comes on, and I am at home with
-
Your Life is Not In Our Budget
By George Capsis “We publish too much hospital stuff,” Liza, our Traffic Manager, dryly quoted a WestView reader. I winced and thought “maybe” and then a Dusty miracle occurred—I accessed the unpublished manuscript of a heart attack surgeon who opens his book with, “Most of us will die of a heart attack.” Actually, it is
-
WHO NEEDS THE MALDIVES?
Now that it rains in the desert, SoCal is experiencing a super bloom. Pictured above are California Poppy, Lupine, and Canterbury Bells flowers.
-
Home Care Starts with Love (Part Three)
By Gregory Solometo In the March issue of WestView, I discussed the roles of home care professionals who are essential to comprehensive elder care. This month, I discuss the financing options available for home care services. Aside from the few services which Medicare covers, the unfortunate reality is that much of home care comes down
-
Navigating the PeopleWay
By Paul Steely White With a 15-month suspension of L Train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan and along 14th Street coming in 2019, the City needs to start planning now to accommodate the 225,000 commuters who depend on the L Train. To avoid “L-mageddon,” we are proposing a “PeopleWay” to prioritize buses, biking, and walking
-
Caruso’s Quips
By Charles Caruso Sex is like fire. It can keep the house warm—or burn it down. ___ A woman’s touch is always a signal. ___ Deep in March snow, shop windows have an April glow. ___ Small pooch, small poops, less to scoop. ___ Without women, all the men would have killed each other a
-
Landlords: From Best to Worst (and So Much in Between)
By Joseph Turco, Esq. We are now familiar with the City’s annual “Ten Worst Landlords” List, of infamous criminals, miscreants, con men, and non-human creatures of the “one percent” who own the roofs over our collective head. I love this list’s achievement, calling out dastardly deeds: harassment, thievery, intimidation, assault, bribery, perjury, mortgage fraud, tax
