In the last election the West Village and the surrounding 66th electoral district voted 4156 for Teachout and 1885 for Cuomo – wow more than two to one.
The term “entrenched” clings to Cuomo who refused to even debate the un- known Teachout and released a barrage of unnecessarily expensive TV commercials
Some 30 years ago, then State Senator Bill Passanante sat at our kitchen table and revealed that while there had been an effort to get the site on 7th Avenue and 13th Street, (where the Healthplex is now,) for a desperately needed intermediate school to serve the kids of the West Village, civil rights fervor had moved the location to 17th Street near 9th Avenue, to better serve the black and Hispanic kids in Fulton Houses.
My wife and I sent first Athena and then Ariadne, but we started to hear of problems between the village kids and those from the Fulton Houses and the surrounding poorer neighborhoods, and village parents began to take their kids out.
The principal pleaded with us to keep them in – that the school would quickly go down hill if we did, but even the most liberal parents lose that liberality when their kids are exposed to the dangers of cruel and memory-scarring adolescent “incidents”.
Now we are finally getting that West Village intermediate school with the conversion of 75 Morton Street, and nobody is saying that it is unfair to build it in what is now, with the emergence of condo dwellers, a pretty rich neighborhood. Thirty years ago we did not have political leaders who were wise enough to accept that schools have to serve communities not social causes.
Before the election for Mayor, Maggie called out from the hall “There is a beauti- ful young lady who wants to see you – do you want to see her “ and in walked Sarah Jessica Parker to ask if WestView News would support Bill de Blasio (who was about 60 points behind Quinn.)
In that de Blasio interview I impulsively got up and put an arm around the seated 6’ 5” de Blasio and said: “You’ve got to get a hospital back and you will make mayor.” Later he got arrested trying to save Long Island College Hospital.
Political wisdom and political courage builds neighborhood schools and saves 161-year-old hospitals.
Deborah Glick seems to unthinkingly serve her own aggressive feistiness before community needs. She has had the job as our state senator that Bill Passanante had 30 years ago and I can’t help getting the feeling she has had it too long, that right now it is just a way to pay the rent. She has learned how little you can do to keep the job and that if she is bitchy enough people will accept it as leadership.
But I will never vote for a politician who lost our hospital.
As I voted for Teachout I will vote for Alexander Meadows to suggest that politicians embedded in the system can cynically tell why it can’t be done,but only a fresh vision can tell why it should be done.
