Alexander Goldstein, Brooklyn Heights
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To the editor,
Kuntzman gave himself space on the front page to complain about the LIRR’s security measures. It was hard to know if Kuntzman was upset because of the aesthetics of the mammoth cement bollards or whether he was venting about the “so-called realities of the so-called post-9-11 world.”
If it’s the latter, then Kuntzman becomes part of the problem of having no one to blame but ourselves. For the last six years, local electeds, community groups and professionals have been raising the issue that Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner claims that no special security measures are required for his basketball arena. This is counter to what both Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly publicly acknowledge.
This is the so-called real world, the one that resulted in the bollards that Kuntzman so rightfully dislikes. Pretending it’s otherwise is what gets us the after-the-fact imposition of the 21st-century medievalism he deplores. Pretending otherwise is what allowed the Empire State Development Corporation to avoid looking at security-related traffic impacts in its flawed 2006 Environmental Impact Statement.
Simply put, had the agency looked at the security implications, then Atlantic Yards might not have been approved.
And because no one has factored in security, Kuntzman will get, at best, bollards designed by the elitist architecture firm ShoP. But the LIRR terminal is an underground facility, while the Barclays Center is above-ground, with lines of sight directly into its interior. That means that traffic along Atlantic and Flatbush avenues will be impacted when adequate security measures are finally imposed just as they were when two streets were closed hardly two weeks before Newark’s Prudential Center opened.Alan Rosner,
Prospect Heights
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To the editor,
The coffins are a reality of the times.
What is not a reality of the times is the filthy conditions of the MTA transit walkways and steps and the general maintenance of the place. What is the point of building all of these new facilities and not keeping them clean?
Al Pankin, Downtown
Mean streets
To the editor,
In reply to Benjamin Shepard’s letter (“Pedal Pusher,” Jan. 1), I had to ask this: Benjamin, you wrote that “no biker ever killed an automobile driver.” Perhaps that’s true. But they sure have come close to killing their share of pedestrians, including myself and my sister, who was hit by a biker in Manhattan and had to have surgery on her wrist as a result. (He was going to ride away when a group of pedestrians surrounded him and held him until the police arrived.)
They ride through our streets on vehicles capable of inflicting severe damage, even if said damage is not as deadly as a car or truck. It is absolutely the responsibility of “drivers” to exercise due care, but that includes bicycle “drivers.”
Tom Angelo, Crown Heights
Fly in the ‘Soup’
To the editor,
As a recent former Brooklynite, I found Andy Campbell’s takedown of the “bridge and tunnel” crowd that frequented the Neon Indian show a little hard to take (“Hey, Brooklyn, where were you on Thursday?” Campbell’s Soup, Jan. 1).
Rather than celebrate the change in Brooklyn’s profile — out-of-towners now want to come there rather than Manhattan — he takes a gratuitous potshot at the very customers the borough’s music venues need to survive.
And what’s the deal with the “we’re-better-than-you” attitude so common among Brooklynites these days?
And as for the borough’s celebrated uniqueness, as far as I can tell, you all have the same problems — poverty, poor schools, and a housing shortage — as any other borough.
Lawrence Goodman,
Providence, R.I.