Affordable and low height
To The Editor:
Re “Village Fight Club: Norton and Co. sock it to Blaz on rezoning” (news article, Nov. 26):
I live in Chelsea, on 17th St. and Eighth Ave., and we’re running into the same problem — giant buildings, little affordable housing, an overcrowded infrastructure and big changes in our demographics.
While there are places for the bigger buildings, and affordable housing is critical (that is, if it really is affordable), I don’t think the mayor’s plan is working. You need to respect the character of neighborhoods to make constructive change.
I really hope the mayor listens to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, because they speak for many Village and Chelsea community members. We want truly affordable housing, but we don’t want to lose the character of our neighborhoods.
Martha Gotwals
A false sense of security
To The Editor:
Re “Are we all sex offenders?” (Rhymes With Crazy, by Lenore Skenazy, Nov. 26) and “Chelsea ‘dark dentist’ busted on meth, child porn charges” (news article, Nov. 26):
The true sexual predators rarely get caught because they victimize small children who are unreliable witnesses. These predators know that their victims are defenseless and voiceless, which makes their sexual deviancy even more heinous.
The existing sex-offender registry is a very sad state of affairs because it provides a false sense of security and it is filled with names of people who pose no risk to the public. Such is life in the U.S.A.
Question: Was Dr. John Wolf’s name on the sex-offender registry? Answer: No it was not. In fact, 97.5 percent of all sex crimes are perpetrated by people not on the sex-offender registry.
Paul Martin
Do tombs hold answers?
To The Editor:
Re “Burial vaults’ discovery once more unearths park’s past as a potter’s field” (news article, Nov. 26):
As someone who has ancestors from both groups — one ancestor from the Scotch Presbyterian Church who died of the fever in 1801, and my other ancestors, his African-American cousins and children who traveled with him — I hope enough survives from this discovery to do some DNA testing and comparisons.
I have extensive genealogical records of my Scottish ancestor but very little of the African Americans, because of the restrictions of the time and the laws banning the preservation of records of black people.
At least in Jamaica, the Scots were defiant enough to keep records. So far, though, I have not found any civic or church records in New York, except for the obituary and Scotch Presbyterian Church connection of my Scottish ancestor, Joseph Smellie.
Pearl Duncan
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