To the Editor:
It’s a surprise to see so many politicians endorsing the Kahn proposal for our Island. No one I know who lives here supports it. And Monday, an endorsement on the editorial page of The New York Times. What’s going on!?
I think President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great President. He’s already memorialized by the FDR Drive and the name of our Island. We haven’t forgotten him.
The Kahn Memorial resembles the prow of a sunken battleship. It’s as lyrical as a cinder block. Times have changed. Islanders have voted for a natural setting, a garden of native plants, not a Soviet-style cementarium.
We the people of Roosevelt Island have a right and a responsibility to shape development on our Island. This is being foisted on us for reasons we don’t know in opposition to our wishes. How about standing up and saying so?
Bill Sinclair
To the Editor:
The idea of a second tram (Mogens Petersen letter, Nov. 3) from the northern part of the Island to the Upper East Side of Manhattan should be seriously considered.
If there are too many obstacles (government, real estate, etc.), has anybody ever considered a second tram that moves people from Roosevelt Island to Queensboro Plaza, where you can catch the N/W/7 trains, or Queens Plaza, where you can catch the E/G/R/V trains? Once there, subway connections can take you to any part of the City. A second tram to the Upper East Side would put passengers on the 4/5/6 train or the future 2nd Avenue subway, somewhere uptown.
Maybe we can even get a 2-for-1 discount price on the new proposed Tram system.
Even a rush-hour shuttle bus across the red bridge to the Broadway or 36th Avenue stations in Long Island City would relieve some of the pressure.
Kurt Wittman
To the Editor:
We have been living with the current bus route and, while it’s good that the bus stops in front of the subway, there is still room for improvement at the Tram end of the ride. Our quick turnaround was taken away some time ago by the building construction, and I was thinking that our current route, around the block, was only temporary, but I was recently informed there are no plans to go back to the old turnaround, since the new building will be in the way.
In the meantime, we get on the bus and go for a minute-long, joyless ride around the block, with the sole purpose of facing in the right direction. I would like to save myself and my fellow passenger that New York Minute. (It’s really a minute and a half). If you multiply that by the number of passengers, then we are wasting a lot of time. We are tired at the end of the day, we are all running late. We want to get home and have dinner. Fortunately, I have discovered a shortcut (see diagram below). I only wish I had thought of it sooner when they were redoing the lawn for the Roosevelt Island welcoming kiosk, but: Would it be possible to build a road that gently goes around the green in front of the Tram? People would board the bus in the same spot as they do now, and then it would circle the green and we would be on our way. That would save us all a lot of time.
With the construction of all the new buildings, why not have one more piece of construction work, a new road? At least this construction will not be contributing to more congestion on the Island.
Neal Weissman
To the Editor:
The WIRE’s headline, Rivercross Plans Departure From Mitchell-Lama Without Extension of Its Ground Lease, is misleading. The article itself makes clear that this is simply a proposal of a committee of residents who have labored long and hard to come up with a plan, but the headline makes it seem that the proposal has been adopted by the governing bodies of the Rivercross coop. That is not the case.
The Rivercross Board of Directors will need to study the proposal for its legality and financial feasibility, as well as determine, after due diligence and review, whether it serves the best interests of all shareholders. Any plan to leave Mitchell-Lama would then require a two-thirds vote of Rivercross’s 360 tenant-shareholder units to begin a long process that starts with the filing of a "notice of intent" with the State. Thereafter, disclosure documents must be prepared outlining the plan and its risks, which must be accepted for filing by the Attorney General’s office. Public meetings of shareholders and officials must take place. Upon review by legal counsel, consents may have to be obtained from the State and Rivercross’s mortgage lender to proceed without violating its ground lease, mortgage, and other obligations. Thus, the committee’s proposal is just that: a proposal. Whether it will become the "Rivercross Plan" after study, deliberation, consents, votes, and other procedures are undertaken, remains to be determined.
Robert Chira
To RIOC Board Members:
I am writing regarding a very serious concern. The Island has grown so much that it is imperative that we do more to increase the ability for residents to recycle and conserve.
I recently attended a course with the Department of Sanitation. They are very willing to supply us with signs and other information to distribute in multiple languages. The individual buildings would have to purchase receptacles: one for glass, one for metal, and one for paper. I realize that space is sometimes a problem. But this is minor compared to the benefit this would provide.
I have already met with Doryne Isley. She was interested but had reservations as to how to put this into place. She said that sorting is done in the basement by the porters. However, I am dubious as to how thoroughly it is being done. The first line of defense is the residents who would make this process so much easier for the porters.
Beyond the crucial sorting that residents would contribute, I realize that there is also the issue of hauling recycled material away. I think that we could work this out as well, especially with our friends in the political arena.
Please take this into serious consideration. I would be happy to do whatever is needed to facilitate this process. My contact in the Department of Sanitation is also willing to help us as much as possible.
Environmental problems are more critical than ever, and I think that 13,000 people is not an insignificant number of people to make a dent in this problem.
Katherine Vithlani
To the Editor:
I certainly have appreciated all the help that my fellow Islanders have given me over the years. Especially, then, do I apologize for the rude way I treated the gentleman, with his wife, when they offered to help me up after I had tripped and fallen by the Deli on the morning of Sunday, October 25. (I was the blind man in the orange shirt.)
My reflexes are slowing down, and I am really becoming a cranky old man, despite my efforts to mask the fact. I am not used to unexpected falls. Thank you!
Thank you, everybody, for all your kindness.
Reed Devlin
To the Editor:
Island Cats, a community group dedicated to the neutering of outdoor and abandoned cats on the Island, conducted a cat-sterilization program November 2-11, directed by the ASPCA and the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals. Because of an emergency last-minute situation with the cold weather, we asked RIOC if we could use the Montauk Credit Union space for that number of days. It was agreed that it would be on a one-time basis. It has come to our attention that there were some complaints about an odor in the Island House lobby, which we fixed immediately. We very much regret any discomfort residents of Island House were caused. But we also regret any problems this may have caused RIOC. There was no way for anyone to foresee that this one-time, brief emergency accomodation would create such a problem. As many of us on the Island have reason to know, the new RIOC is working hard and imaginatively to help groups performing a community service.
Jennifer Dunning
Island Cats
To the Editor, New York Times:
"A Roosevelt for Roosevelt Island?" Absolutely! Just not this three acre anachronism that was repudiated in a public survey taken in October 2004 by Southpoint Park designer, The Trust for Public Land. For seven years we Islanders have been a part of the planning for this thirteen-acre park and there is consensus that it should include an FDR Memorial. But we endorsed a "Wild Gardens/Green Rooms" design concept and rejected the Kahn plan as too formal and too sterile. The Kahn plan has hung fire for the last thirty-three years and now, as the $12.9 million Southpoint Park Phase I approaches the start of construction, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has put all their eggs in the Kahn basket. If our public officials no longer find the 2004 survey valid, why don’t they commission another? Parks should be built for the public that will use them not for the architectural community that will visit once and never return.
Matthew Katz, President
Roosevelt Island Residents Association
To RIOC President Steve Shane:
This is belated, but I want to thank you for clearing the street of many of the perpetual parkers. There seem to be a few left, like the van with the broken-down driver’s running board that stays in front of the school, but at least now there is a 50/50 chance of finding a legal space open.
I hope you will be able to keep the PS folks from being selective in their enforcement duties.
By the by, perhaps the Empire State Development bombshell may help to persuade the folks to look with a wider scope at the effort toward privatization. Your efforts on that have been in the right direction, too.
David J. Bauer
To the Editor:
Now you get something extra for the price of admission to the subway station on Roosevelt Island. They have found a new way to torture us: Talking escalators that don’t shut up and can be heard from one end of the station to the other. And nothing is so heartfelt as a mechanical voice wishing me, "Have a good day!" just after it has ordered me about. It said something about holding the handrail, but I don’t really recall because it was so traumatic I blocked most of it out. Please go tell George Bush to stop torturing the Arabs and the rest of us commuters.
Neal Weissman
To State Senator Jose Serrano:
During your campaign, you promised Roosevelt Island that you would set up office hours in the community. Though you’ve been in office for a full year and more, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of you or any of your representatives, except at our blood drive in the June Roosevelt Island Day event. Assemblyman Kellner has office hours every Thursday, 3-7 p.m., in the RIOC office conference room. You could probably make a similar arrangement.
You probably are, or certainly should be, aware of the huge debacle that has occurred with the loss of Eastwood from the affordable housing stock under the RIOC administration headed by Herbert Berman and under DHCR’s oversight. Perhaps you’ve gotten wind of the difficulties being experienced by Rivercross, Westview, and Island House buildings, all in Mitchell-Lama but working to extricate our separate buildings from the intransigence and ineptitude of DHCR by creating affordable and long-term tenant ownership. DHCR has recently made it a more difficult task imposing on us their criteria of "second-generation" to the terms of long-term housing affordability, in order to satisfy the current DHCR Commissioner VanAmerongen. In spite of this added burden, this criterion has been met.
The concern of DHCR is housing, not homes. Stephen Shane, the current President/CEO of RIOC, has said as much in a face-to-face meeting with the Westview Board of Directors. He’s not worried if we lose our homes, or residents leave due to their not being able to wait for serious repairs to be made by owners, but who, during privatization negotiations, have no intention of doing those necessary repairs. Yet Mr. Shane quite unambiguously stated to the Westview Board that he wasn’t bothered by our possible loss of tenants and would have no trouble filling our apartments because there’s a long list of people needing housing and waiting to take ours!
And now, this serious additional attack on Roosevelt Island housing: Within the last two weeks, the three remaining Mitchell-Lama buildings’ owners have received news that the ESDC is beginning to bill our three buildings for full tax-equivalency payments, despite City Council Resolution 388-A granting real-property tax abatment (PILOTs), for an additional period of 50 years, to Mitchell-Lama housing companies. Our buildings were included on the list attached to this resolution. Some questions were raised at the time as to the applicability of this bill to our buildings, but we were assured by our political representatives (were you included?) that our tax abatement would continue as long as we were in the M-L program.
This news means that an increase to Mitchell-Lama owners’ tax bills creates a situation whereby the owners will be required to pay a PILOT increase between 75% and possibly up to 100% in Westview and Island House of what is currently being paid, even while in the Mitchell-Lama program! In other words, ESDC (the State) does not recognize these Roosevelt Island Mitchell-Lamas as part of the City Council resolution. ESDC has found itself an easy and lucrative funding source! This enormous increase could force owners to pull out of the program faster and sell off their buildings, ricocheting into enormous rent hikes by new owners, and forcing current residents out. Or the current owners may try to pass on this tax hike to tenants while still in the program. Of course, while in Mitchell-Lama they’d need the authorization from DHCR to raise the rents. But from Westview’s point of view this is an agency that has never seen a rent hike it didn’t like, no matter the "affordability" issue. Higher rents, one way or the other, would be required to pay this bill because, as we all know, the owners are not expected to pay it out of their own pockets. If our rents were raised by 100%, what does that say about DHCR’s mantra of affordable housing?
We are hoping for a political solution to this problem and hope that you will be part of it. Will you make it a point to come to this community with your colleagues and with some real information, and more importantly, with real solutions for us vis-à-vis this craziness from ESDC? This community is constantly under attack from either unfettered development, DHCR’s mismanagement, or RIOC. And now we’ve got ESDC on our backs. So much for paradise.
Have you and Assemblyman Kellner spoken about this issue? Have you been in touch with Roosevelt Island’s City Council Representative, Jessica Lappin? What are you going to do to help remedy this situation?
Roosevelt Islanders, a prime key to your election to the State Senate hope to see you again soon. We hope we don’t have to wait until next June.
Sherie L. Helstien
Secretary, Roosevelt Island Residents Association
Member, Westview Taskforce Board of Directors