By Benjamin M. Haber
One need not be surprised. U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) and City Council members Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills), Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-East Elmhurst) and Peter Koo (D-Flushing) support allowing private for-profit companies to use Flushing Meadows Corona Park for music events that will require paid admissions.
These individuals haven’t the slightest notion concerning the importance of urban parks and FMCP in particular. They treat FMCP as real estate to be sold off to the highest bidder and the little people who need and use the park should be content to spend their free time sitting on the sidewalk in front of their places of residence.
Over 100 years ago, Frederick Law Olmstead, the genius who created Central Park and Prospect Park in this city and important parks elsewhere said:
“The survival of our park system requires the exclusion from its management of real estate dealers and politicians and that the first duty of our park trustees is to hand down from one generation to the next the treasure of scenery which the city has placed in their care.”
Suffice it to say, the vast populations that now occupy our cities, make it clear Mr. Olmstead’s admonition is more pertinent today in requiring even more vigilant protection of our urban parks. It is evident Crowley, Koslowitz, Ferreras-Copeland and Koo do not possess the intellectual ability to understand what Mr. Olmstead was talking about, raising serious questions about their ability to hold public office. Fortunately, term limits will in the near future cause the exit of these City Council members from the City Council. I doubt they will be missed, and hope they will be replaced by a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stolid chamber.
Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing
