Central Park Traffic Threats
Last year, Transportation Alternatives teamed up with Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver to wave bye-bye to the very last motor vehicle on the Central Park Carriage Drive and open up the drive to its original purpose, an exclusive road for horse drawn carriages, later joined by thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists. Now from out of the dark and distant past (NY Times June 8, 2021) comes along the real estate mogul, Steve Nislick, with his cronies from NYCLASS, to bring back the cars and once again try to eliminate the horses and carriages which have trodden there since the mid-nineteenth century. The livelihoods of the carriage drivers would be lost. The horses would become dog meat and their stables would be replaced by Nislick’s high rises. Thousands of residents and visitors would lose the pleasure of slowly ambling through the verdant groves.
This is the same Steve Nislick who conspired, fortunately unsuccessfully, with former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to destroy the High Line so that his firm, Edison Parking, could build high rises over the track beds which he owned. He would have insured the loss of one of the greatest Manhattan parks since Central and Riverside Parks were built. The election of Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the kibosh on Mr. Nislick’s greedy ambitions, when the mayor designated the High Line as parkland. New Yorkers will have to remain continuously vigilant to protect our parks from the selfish real estate barons.
—Barry Benepe
Christine McLaughlin
Hello George,
My name is Jo Grossman and I recently grew concerned about a dear friend in NYC, Christine McLaughlin, after trying to reach her and learning that both her phone numbers were disconnected. Immediately knowing something was wrong and not having any mutual friends, I Googled her name and found your April 2021 issue in which there was a photo and details of her passing. I feared the worst but when I saw that I was devastated. Although I didn’t see Christine very often, having left NYC in 1978, any time I visited the city over the years, meeting up with her was a high point of my trips. We first met in Greenwich Village in 1966 when she was just 16 years old and I was 19.
I am hoping one of your readers might be able to provide me with contact information for her family members or friends. Her closest family are her late husband’s (Harvey McLaughlin) sisters, whose names I have Googled, but as they are all quite common, it’s difficult to connect to the right ones. I very much would like to reach out to the family to share my condolences. I appreciate your help and hope to hear from you.
—Jo Grossman
Bedbugs of Bethune, printed in the June issue of WestView News, asked people to respond by email if they wished to share stories. We regret that the email address was not printed. Please send any comments to westbether@gmail.com
