oped BTR letters & comments
LET US HEAR FROM YOU
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J BTR ULY 12-18, 2019 13
Who’s paying
for slavery
Letters to the editor are welcome from all readers.
They should be addressed care of this newspaper
to Laura Guerriero, Publisher, the Bronx
Times Reporter, 3604 E. Tremont Ave., Bronx, NY
10465, or e-mail to bronxtimes@cnglocal.com.
All letters, including those submitted via email,
MUST be signed and with a verifi able address
and telephone number included.
Note that the address and telephone number
will NOT be published and the name will be
published or withheld upon request.
No unsigned letters can be accepted for publication.
The editor reserves the right to edit all
submissions.
Fulfi lling our
promise to
‘never forget’
CONGRESSWOMAN
CAROLYN B. MALONEY
Dear editor,
Recently, while pandering
for votes, several Democratic
candidates have embraced the
idea of providing ‘reparations’
to the descendants of persons
held in slavery. Will the funds
for this ill-advised idea come
from the descendants of slaveholders?
It seems only fair
that those who benefi tted from
the free labor of slaves be the
ones to foot the bill for reparations
and not the American
taxpayers.
Pasqual Pelosi
‘Triboro X’
line’s impact
Dear editor,
Assemblywoman Latrice
Walker’s calling for the MTA
to study potential construction
of the Triboro connector
which would run from Co-op
City via Queens to Bay Ridge,
Brooklyn may be a waste of
time and money.
In 2016, the Regional Planning
Association updated release
of an old proposal from
1996 for construction of the
Triboro X new rail service.
Just how did the RPA come up
with a potential cost of $1 to
$2 billion? My experiences of
over 31 years in the transportation
fi eld tell me it could easily
cost several billion more.
Any proposed extension of the
route from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
to Staten Island would require
construction of a tunnel
and additional station at
the St. George Staten Island
Ferry Terminal. This could
also provide a connection to
the Staten Island Rapid Transit
station and system.. This
additional work alone could
easily cost $5 billion.
The proposed route will
traverse dozens of neighborhoods
impacting several hundred
thousand people living
nearby. How will they react
to potential noise and visual
impacts of a new elevated subway?
There are serious legal
and operational issues to
be resolved with the Federal
Rail Road Administration.
They have regulatory jurisdiction
over signifi cant portions
of the proposed route
which would run adjacent to
existing active freight tracks.
Subway and freight trains
have to coexist on the same
narrow corridor.
Project costs will probably
include a series of new stations
with elevators and escalators.
This is necessary to provide
transfer capacity with 15 subway
and four commuter rail
stations that intersect along
the route. (Each connecting
subway or commuter rail station
could easily cost from $50
to $100 million; (Imagine the
costs of escalators and including
elevators to be in compliance
with the Americans wit
Disabilities Act). Add to that
-- new track, signals, power,
power substations and a hundred
or more new subway cars
($2 million per car). This additional
fl eet would require
construction of a new maintenance,
operations and storage
yard (several hundred
million.) What community
would be willing to host such
a facility. There is also a potential
serious confl ict at the
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn terminus.
This is also a potential
site for a connection to the proposed
$10 billion Cross Harbor
Freight Tunnel project.
History has told us that construction
of most major new
transportation system expansion
projects have taken decades.
There is the completion
of feasibility studies, environmental
reviews, planning, design,
engineering, real estate
acquisition, permits, procurements,
budgeting, identifying
and securing funding to pay
for all of the above before construction
can start.
There is not enough space
here to list many other transportation
projects in NYC
whose costs range from $50
million to $6 billion that might
be considered a higher priority
than the ‘Triboro X’ line.
Larry Penner
Cemetery land
isn’t vacant
Dear editor,
In a recent article the Bronx
Times referred to the area
next to St. Peter’s churchyard
as a “vacant parcel of land.” It
is not. It is a cemetery. Would
you call the cemetery surrounding
St. Peter’s Church or
the miles of land comprising
St. Raymond’s Cemetery a “vacant
parcel of land?”
The documents in question
from Jon Arnow, a direct
descendant of many buried in
the cemetery, were written in
1909 and form a comprehensive
survey of the burial records
and monuments of four
historical Bronx cemeteries in
or near Westchester Square.
They are St. Peter’s, the
Fox/Friends Quaker Cemetery
(the ‘vacant land’ in
question), the Ferris Family
Cemetery, and the Methodist
Cemetery. These documents
clearly show approximately
70 to 80 people buried there, as
well as it being the location of
one of the two Quaker meeting
houses (the other would have
been across the street) that
were both destroyed by arsonists
on the same night.
Hopefully, the Bishop will
choose to honor the dead who
are buried in that cemetery
and not allow backhoes to come
in and desecrate 300 years of
burials, not to mention signifi -
cant artifacts from the earliest
Quaker meeting houses in the
country. We need affordable
housing, but not here.
Sandi Lusk, for the Ad Hoc
Committee, Preservation
of the Friends Cemetery in
Westchester Square
BY CONGRESSWOMAN
CAROLYN B. MALONEY
Last week, we lost an incredible
New Yorker – an
American hero – NYPD Detective
Luis Alvarez. I vowed that
we would fi nish his last mission
– to take care of the 9/11
community.
On July 11, the House is
scheduled to fi nally vote to
fully fund and make permanent
the September 11th Victim
Compensation Fund to
take care of every fi rst responder,
construction worker,
volunteer, and survivor who
is now sick and the spouses
left alone and the children left
without parents because of illnesses
caused by 9/11.
In honor of NYPD Detective
James Zadroga, the fi rst
person to die from 9/11 illness;
FDNY Firefi ghter Ray Pfeifer
and NYPD Detetive Luis Alvarez,
who dedicated their last
breaths to fi ghting for the 9/11
community; and for all the heroes
who are still dealing with
the effects of 9/11 each and every
day, we will get this done
and send this bill to the president’s
desk.
We have a double moral obligation
to these heroic men
and women. Not only were
they there for us in one of our
nation’s darkest hours, but our
government told all those who
worked on the pile and lived,
worked, and went to school
near Ground Zero that the air
was safe to breathe, and water
was safe to drink when it
wasn’t. They are sick because
of us.
Last month, Congress
heard from Anesta St. Rose
Henry as she testifi ed in front
of the House Committee on the
Judiciary, sitting in front of
two of her children that she is
now raising alone. She lost her
husband Candidus Henry less
than a month earlier to glioblastoma,
a rare brain cancer,
connected to his time working
on the pile at Ground Zero.
She told us and the American
people about Candidus,
and the hole he left behind – a
hole only made larger by the
fact that, because her husband
died in May instead of two
years ago, she and her family
will not receive a full award
from the September 11th Victim
Compensation Fund (VCF)
because the fund is currently
facing a budget shortfall.
The Special Master of the
Fund announced in February
that, because of lack of funding,
it was forced to start cutting
awards by 50 to 70 percent
to extend the fund’s life. The
Henrys are one of the families
devastated by this reduction.
But we will fi x that by passing
this bill.
Not only does the Never
Forget the Heroes fully fund
and make permanent the VCF
for the future, but it also directs
the Special Master to revisit
all the reduced awards
paid out to the 9/11 community
because of the budget
shortfall and make these families
whole.
After 9/11, we vowed to
Never Forget and with that, we
made a commitment to make
sure every 9/11 fi rst responder
and survivor, and their families,
never have to go without
the support they need or deserve.
It is the very least we
can do as a grateful nation.
(Congresswoman Maloney
represents New York’s 12th
Congressional District spanning
parts of Queens and Manhattan.)
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