At the June 16 Jamaica Estates Civic Association meeting, the secretary of the board provided a report of a recent meeting between members of the association and the president of Saint John’s University (SJU), Father Donald Harrington. The purpose of the meeting was to address the community’s dissatisfaction concerning the SJU off-campus dormitory presently being built on Henley Road in the heart of our residential community. A series of questions from the membership ensued, which Mr. Joseph Sciame, Vice President of Community Relations at SJU, attempted to address.
One of the questions/comments posed to Sciame and Arthur Flug, Chair of the Association, was if the SJU Queens campus is located outside the perimeters of the Jamaica Estates community, why does SJU include in their literature that their “Queens campus is located in the beautiful Jamaica Estates community?”
Sciame was quick to respond, saying that because of SJU’s strategic plan they will no longer refer to the school as the Jamaica Estates campus but as the Queens campus because the word “Jamaica” carries a negative connotation, which could adversely influence the decision of out of town students.
I consider SJU’s plan insulting, elitist and racist. Saint John’s University is modifying their brochures and literature, not to correct an error, but to target a different audience that might find the name Jamaica offensive!
Write and share your outrage with Father Harrington at Saint John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, NY 11439.
Philip Ross
Member of the Concerned Residents of Jamaica Estates
Jamaica Estates Civic Association
Let the courts decide
The city’s Willets Point proposal is a taxpayer rip off on a grand scale for the benefit of fat cat real estate developers. The price to be paid is enormous. Apart from the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, more than 225 viable businesses will be destroyed and more than 1,300 employees and thousands of their dependents will be sacrificed.
The fact the city has reached a deal with two of the businesses in my opinion should not deter the other hundreds of businesses from remaining steadfast. (City reaches deal with two at Willets - Queens Courier - June 19.) Should they elect to stay, the city cannot simply take their property. The city would be obliged to do so through eminent domain.
Willets Point is a viable economic area. Whatever the city is offering, should the owners lose on the question of eminent domain, they will get it from the court. If they succeed in opposing eminent domain, the proposal is through and the businesses remain. They lose nothing by seeking their day in court.
Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing
Jerry Manuel fan
I like the new Mets manager - he is just what the doctor ordered. No offense to Willie Randolph, but he used to sound like a politician when he spoke to the press. Jerry Manuel is the exact opposite. He’s not afraid to go way out there and shake things up. You need a guy who’s a little crazy for this job - New York is a crazy town!
Michael Chimenti
Oakland Gardens
Worrisome odds
Four out of nine Supreme Court Justices think that America has been wrong for 217 years! This is a very dangerous situation … Disarming ordinary citizens is one of the first steps to establish a dictatorship (Stalin, Hitler).
Victor Maltsev
Rego Park
The enemy is us!
Is it us, or is it the transients who come to our area, who leave their debris on our streets and sidewalks? (Or both?) The neighborhood appears to be getting strewn with more and more leftover garbage as the days and weeks go by! Is what the old-time comic strip hero Pogo said really true? He said, “We have met the enemy … and he is us!”
A street or sidewalk strewn with garbage implies, “I’m already filthy so it’s OK to toss your waste here too!” It is our responsibility, all of us, to try our hardest to keep the area clean! Don’t litter and if you see someone else littering, politely inform them that they are demeaning themselves and everyone else who lives here and who comes here, especially those who may want to buy a house here, or rent an apartment here…or who even come to shop here. In addition, it is not beneath you or us to pick up a stray piece of litter and throw it in the nearest waste container!
We have frequently observed that the most littered blocks are those surrounding the Lindenwood shopping center, especially 82nd Street, 84th Street and 153rd Avenue.
Dave Shlakman
Catch them if you can …
With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, I am under the assumption that you passed a law restricting these Mr. Softee trucks from continuously playing their music, once they have stopped at a destination.
I have contacted the 109th Precinct, and they reassured me that this was a violation of the noise pollution laws in the city. They further said they would do whatever they can to issue them a summons, “if they catch them.” I went as far as to get the license number on the truck.
These trucks have continued to totally disregard the law, and the warnings, given them. It drives us all crazy, and speaking with the drivers gets us a “laugh in the face response.” How brazen is that?
Carolyn Halley
Whitestone
Heartless in Hartford
I was appalled and greatly saddened to see the video from Hartford, CT, showing a 78-year-old man being hit and the driver running away. My faith was terribly shaken with the coldness of my fellow human beings who walked and drove around him and never stopped to help.
My faith though was restored this morning [June 6]. I was on the N-58 bus at 7:12 a.m. leaving the Great Neck railroad station and traveling along Middle Neck Road to my job at Northeast Plumbing, when all of a sudden the car in front of us hit an older man on his bike. Well, Good Samaritans seemed to come out of the woodwork. The person who had hit him came to help. Another man came over to our bus and knocked on the door to get the bus driver to call it in. I watched from my bus as the man shakily got up, with his bike on the ground and blood rolling down his cheek. Bystanders came up to him and got him to sit on the curb until help arrived. A few people came over to him trying to comfort him. This was the morning rush hour and yet people took the time out of their busy schedules to help a fellow human being. People might be heartless in Hartford but Good Samaritans are alive and well in Great Neck.
Frederick R. Bedell Jr.
Bellerose
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