Forgotten New York has done a piece on the demise of the Hackett Building and the rest of the endangered neighborhood of Hunters Point:Hackett Buddies
Forgotten New York has done a piece on the demise of the Hackett Building and the rest of the endangered neighborhood of Hunters Point:
6 comments:
I think that Kevin's "Forgotten N.Y." piece should be sent to the LPC in the hopes that they take their rejection of the magnificent Hackett Building and put it where the "sun don't shine"!
The treatment of Hunters Point (where community spirit at stopping their wholescale displacement is broken) and Dutch Kills (where the community was smilingly given jumping off a cliff as the only route forward) contrasts with the latest assault in neighboring Sunnyside Gardens.
Any journalism students out there? Any grad students that would like to do a paper on the ethic of planning the extermination of a community?
When you first used the word extermination, I thought it was a bit strong bringing back images of Europeans and Indians, Nazis and Jews.
On second thought, it seems chillingly appropriate.
In both those examples we have peoples from different cultures and societies, or ethnic backgrounds in direct conflict.
Here, we have members of the same society. Citizens. Taxpayers. Americans within view of the United Nations.
And their country is at war with them.
It wants their homes and communities. It wants them gone. Anywhere. And it will do anything, even take their own taxes innocently paid to improve their lives and provide services for their families as an instrument to destroy them for the benefit of others in the positions of power and privilege.
Where does something like this lead?
This is sick.
Wow, I never thought about it quite in those terms.
In a city that prides itself in welcoming people from around the world, in celebrating the diversity of the human spirit, in encouraging liberal thought and action that places people in the center of life, this is a shocking development that seems to have evolved right before out eyes.
It certainly places a stain on New York. The silence from our thinking and creative classes is inexcusable.
Has the city cleaned up Times Square and sanitized its wonderful spirit; has it bulldozed its heart?
Has the city lost its soul in losing those 2nd Avenue tenements and in wiping from the surface of the earth those wonderful quirky communities found it its outer boroughs?
Has the city hardened its legendary generous heart as worthless seniors become tenants of valuable rental units and are forced into the street or institutions?
And where in the hell is the outrage in its intelligencia?
Idly counting rents on the beaches in the playgrounds of the rich and powerful?
Well, I can only say that we are in serious trouble in this city when the Village Voice came out against preservation.
Serious trouble, my friends. Would love to see an essay somewhere (there still must be someone with a heart and soul in Sodom) who can explain this development to us.
These are heavy expressions of heart-felt grief for a city in trouble. Take heart in the truth that there have been casualties, but the human spirit can never be crushed to a point where it can be extinguished. Creativity, honesty, and unity can be brough to bear, with great effectiveness, on the most ruthless of tyrants!
Post a Comment