Letters to the editor

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 2 | October 13 - 19, 2006

Thanks for filling void

To The Editor:
I’ve been a resident of Chelsea since I was born, in 1957, and I’ve just read the first issue of Chelsea Now. I love the paper! Thank you for filling the up-to-date-information void in this section of the city. Chelsea has been growing by leaps and bounds in the past 15 years, much faster than I can keep up with. It was great finding out about the new comedy club on 14th St., about increased police presence around the club scene, about BillyMark’s bar, which sounds like the place I’d love to hang out in. Also, I had no idea there was a shooting right across the street from where I live. (I live in Penn South and it seems that this kind of information is not readily made available to us through bulletins and newsletters.) Finally, I feel that I know what’s going on around here! I feel much more connected to my environment and I can’t tell you how much this means to me.

I would like to make a suggestion. Could you add a section in your paper that informs us about the new buildings that are being built in the neighborhood? It seems that there’s a new building being constructed every week and sometimes we can’t really tell whether it’s commercial or residential. I would love to read about the high-rise that was built right in front of the Empire State Building just recently. How on earth did they get permission from the city to build that high? I watched it go up every day through my window, scared to death that it would completely obliterate my view! Alas, from my floor I can still fully see the three colored bands that glow every night. From the ground, however, a chunk of the building is completely obliterated.

Also, I hear there’s a huge development coming up soon along the Hudson River that stretches all along Chelsea. Is this true? If so, can you fill us in on all the details, i.e., when the project is starting, how long it will take, whether it’s residential or not, will there be parks, etc.?

It’s just amazing to me what’s going on around here. I remember when nobody knew where Chelsea was!

Again, thanks so much for an amazing newspaper. Please keep up the good work!

Nancy Silva

Fired up over patrol

To The Editor:
Re “Fire Patrol fights to keep from being snuffed out” (news article, Oct. 6)

It should be noted that the main motivation for the Board of Fire Underwriters’ closing down of their Fire Patrol houses in our neighborhoods appears to be to cash in on the lucrative real estate market and sell off their valuable properties in Chelsea, the Village and Brooklyn. This would not only result in the loss of a potentially valuable service and the end of a proud institution, but the loss of three important historic buildings in our communities, and their likely replacement with new and much larger commercial development.

This is why the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has urged the city to landmark the Fire Patrol house on W. Third St., and has brought the threat to the Chelsea Fire Patrol house to the attention of community leaders in Chelsea and on Community Board 5, who are now also advocating for landmarking of their historic patrol houses.

Anyone interested in finding out more about how they can save these wonderful buildings and pieces of our city’s and neighborhoods’ history can call G.V.S.H.P. at 212-475-9585 or go to www.gvshp.org.

Andrew Berman
Berman is executive director, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

Reid rocks

To The Editor:
Just want to let you know I enjoy Mikhaela’s cartoon in your newspaper. Please keep running it.

Charles Brubaker

Poetry from Penn South

To The Editor:
I moved from Brooklyn Heights to Chelsea in 1999, after waiting 14 years to get into Penn South.

I was thrilled to be in Manhattan at last, and one Sunday morning, looking at my view of the Chelsea Hotel and quietly exulting, I watched the contortions of a strip of plastic in the wind. This poem was my tribute to that happy morning.

I offer it to you to publish, if you wish, in your good, long-overdue newspaper:

Chelsea Morning
A strip of pink plastic
thought it was a seagull,
bent itself in half for wings,
found the updraft,
and flew, I tell you,
for two seconds,
in formation,
with two white and black
regulars.

Rosemary Maude

E-mail letters, not longer than 350 words in length, to news@chelseanow.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to Chelsea Now, Letters to the Editor, 145 Sixth Ave., ground floor, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. Chelsea Now reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel.