A Complicated Assignment
Editors:
Thanks to F. Quinn for keeping Wash. Sq. Park in the news (A Complicated Assignment, April issue); but it’s really not that complicated. Salary of NYC Parks Dept. Deputy Director is $80K+. Average annual salary for Park Enforcement Patrol person is $40K. Our tax $$ “at work”?? Obviously not. There are 22 skateboard parks in NYC; 5 in Manhattan; so there are plenty of them around. Wash. Sq. Park isn’t one of them and never should be. No Smoking Allowed in any City or State park; enforce it. NO WHEELS signs are at entrances; enforce it. Vendors in the Park are required to be licensed; enforce it. NYU calls the Park its “campus”: use your connections to get the Park under control. This constituent of Glick and Hoylman has known for a long time that they don’t take a stand on the hard issues. Ditto Community Board 2. Condolences to the Conservancy and Park volunteers: all your hard work (and financial support) to beautify the Park is at risk of being ruined. More blah blah blah meetings won’t fix our Park. All involved, responsible parties—Parks Dept., NYPD, Conservancy, NYU, residents—need to take action now.
—L. Saunders, Waverly Place
Agree we need more active enforcement, and Police and Parks officials need support. Will strict enforcement of historic rules cause the best outcome, or should public officials engage at meetings to facilitate new approaches to evolving demands by park users? It’s complicated!
—Frank Quinn
A Trash Solution
Hello George,
My suggested solution to the NYC trash problem is to establish a connection with the Sanitation Department and the Schools public and private.
Provide mandatory field trips for all schools to learn about how trash is handled in the city from street collection to the final resting place of our trash. Connect this to a Museum showing how ‘wet wipes’ clog drains, etc.
This might help to teach the population to understand what they are doing.
—Jenny Janzen
Correction
Dear Editor,
I need to correct myself. Printed in my ‘Letter to the Editor’ in your April issue, in which I critiqued George Capsis equating Putin and Trump, I fear I quoted something incorrectly from The Lady Vanishes (1938). Since quotes are sacrosanct, here is the correct version, in context:
Caldicott actually says: “You know, we used to call it Rounders. Children play it with a rubber ball and a stick. Not a word about cricket.
Americans got no sense of proportion.”
What we got here is a failure to double-check. Again, I apologize for my earlier misquote, and for inadvertently misleading your readers.
—John F. Early
