Fear cars, not bikes
To The Editor:
Re “Sharing the city streets” (editorial, July 18):
Thanks for shooting down the “New York City is not Europe” jive, and it is certainly incumbent upon bicyclists to be mindful and considerate of pedestrians. But there is such a double standard around this question.
So far this year, 81 pedestrians in New York have been killed in traffic “accidents.” Exactly one of those deaths was caused by a bicyclist — and it was the first since 2017.
When the anti-bike brigade that haunts The Villager’s comments start to express a little concern over the near-daily carnage caused by motorists, maybe I will take them a little more seriously.
Bill Weinberg
He’s fresh, exciting
To The Editor:
Re “In blackout, Johnson shines, Blaz fizzles” (news article, July 18):
Corey Johnson is a magnificent, fresh and smart voice in New York City politics. I followed all his Twitter posts for blackout info. Very reassuring.
Thank you, Corey.
Bonnie Stein
Monumental statue debate
To The Editor:
Re “Harlem historian: Suffragettes statue is ‘racist’” (news article, thevillager.com, July 11):
If Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were champions of “white women’s suffrage” and Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells were champions of “universal suffrage,” wouldn’t it be improper to combine all of the figures in one monument? There should be two separate monuments.
It’s wrong to “label” a monument honoring two very worthy historical figures who lived more than 100 years ago as “racist.” Was their work predominantly racist, in the context of their time — or feminist?
Should Meredith Bergmann now destroy her beautiful monument?
All I can say is that 2020 will mark the centenary of my mother’s birth, and I will be pleased to see a new monument, or two new monuments, executed by an acclaimed woman sculptor, in Central Park.
Harry Pincus
What Fred said
To The Editor:
Re “Harlem historian: Suffragettes statue is ‘racist’” (news article, thevillager.com, July 11):
Frederick Douglass said: “When there were few houses in which the black man could have put his head, this wooly head of mine found refuge in the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and if I had been blacker than sixteen midnights, without a single star, it would have been the same. There is no name greater than hers in the matter of woman’s rights and equal rights.”
Coline Jenkins
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