Too much room, not enough train
Manhattan: I know I should have been giddy to visit the three new stations on the Second Ave. subway, and without I doubt they will benefit a countless number of people, me included. But instead I was angered that once again our politicians have used our tax dollars and the transit system to build monuments to themselves. The construction of station mezzanines that run the full length of each station cost billions of dollars (more than the tunneling of the actual subway tubes) yet does nothing to increase the throughput of subway service. They don’t result in a single new seat or more frequent service. A simple mezzanine at each entrance with direct access to the platform would have done the job for a fraction of the cost. The absence of any retail stores on the grandiose mezzanines, as there are in subway systems throughout the world, renders them just sterile places with no real purpose.
Sadly this monument building is just part of a trend with stations like Calatrava’s $4 billion WTC Oculus and PATH station. Taxpayers would have been better served by spending the mezzanine money on extending the subway another station or two. Craig Sheldon
Go all out
Manhattan: I’m a bit disappointed to see that new maps of the subway system depict the Second Ave. line as a faint yellow-colored extension of the Q line. In my opinion, the line should be depicted using genuine gold leaf, which should glow in the dark when the lights go out. Get to it, MTA!
Ken Krompinger
Who’s riding the train?
Manhattan: Well there goes the neighborhood. While the Upper East Side was basically silent and safe, now the door is open to homelessness vagrants and the criminal element. Oh well, it was too good to be true.
Mitch Friedman
Postal Santa
Woodside: I would like to thank the USPS employee who allowed my unstamped mail to go through. Even after opening it, and finding gift cards, and my grandson’s first Christmas card, this wonderful postal employee sent it through. The Christmas spirit is still alive! Kerry Carberry
Street sense in Brooklyn
Brooklyn: An open letter to Mayor de Blasio: I know you have your hands full now with Preet Bharara and Cy Vance, but can you please find out how and why your transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, was able to push through a major overhaul of Gerritsen Ave. without the input of Community Board 15 or the residents of the neighborhood? These changes are dangerous and disruptive and serve only to damage our community. Brooklyn DOT Commissioner Kevin Bray stated on Dec. 7 that work would stop, but it continues with the removal of bus shelters, more confusing and poorly marked lanes and DOT cars being left overnight in the middle of the road. I’m sure this rates low on your priority list, but how about lunch next Friday in our Brooklyn neighborhood instead of yours and we can show you firsthand the mess DOT has made? I’ll even buy the pizza. Linda Hardy
Here before the immigrants
Brooklyn: To Voicer Scott Smilo: Do not forget that you and I and millions of us “Americans” are the outsiders who had the audacity to tell by force the real Americans how to talk, live and even worship! Penelope Demetriades
Paying to keep out newcomers
Edison, N.J.: Trump announces that the U.S. taxpayer will pay for the Mexican wall and that Mexico will pay us “later.” Since Trump doesn’t pay taxes, this should not concern him too greatly.
Carole Canace
Friendly town I
Paris: Re “A oui bit rude” (Jan. 1): Since “My first experience in the City of Light began with a wave of rudeness” maybe Jeanette Settembre should not return to Paris. Then we would all be happier. I suggest she visit Buffalo, or Detroit instead. People are not rude to me here, but then again I don’t hang in in tourist hotspots with 500,000 other stupid tourists snapping selfies in front of the Mona Lisa. I live and work in the north of Paris, and people in restaurants are friendly and helpful, but then again we don’t have any American “eateries” or any American tourists, luckily.
Iain Boyd
Friendly town II
Charlottesville, Va.: “A oui bit rude” was among the most inane articles I have ever read. My wife and I were just in Paris to celebrate our 15th anniversary, and our experience was about as opposite of the writer’s as could be. At no time were the Parisians rude to us, even when we showed up at a highly lauded restaurant on Saturday night at 9 with no reservations. We were seated immediately, and the server spoke perfect English to us. Granted, we took time to brush up on our French so we could say more than “Bonjour” and “Au revoir,” but I am sure that if a Parisian came to the U.S., they would not demand that the author of this article speak to them in French. I have been to Paris many times, and the rude Parisian stereotype is just that. I have never, and I mean never, experienced that. Bruce Libby
The Voices of kooks
Waldwick, N.J.: I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, and it could be my imagination, but . . . are you printing letters to the Voice of the People that sound absolutely insane? “Hope is a made-up word”? My father-inlaw “was a mean son of a bitch because he sold to Kedem”? (What did that even mean?) “The censoring of the print and electronic media”? We should “bring back beheading” Do you even have an editor on staff? I know I don’t have to agree with the opinions of others, because they are just opinions, but the letters you’ve been printing are off the chart nuts. Jacqueline Robb
A life well drawn
Manhattan: To Voicer Margie Lazarus White: My condolences on the loss of your father, cartoonist Mell Lazarus, and I, too, was sad to see he was excluded from the story of famous people we lost in 2016. Mell lived on the same block in Brooklyn where I was born and our mothers were friends. At his mother’s suggestion when he was a young man, Mell showed my father, who was also an exceptionally talented artist and whittler, his sketches for “Miss Peach” to critique his work. Shortly thereafter “Miss Peach” was published in the New York Herald Tribune and I especially enjoyed reading your father’s comic strips as a child and well into adulthood with a very special connection. God bless and may he RIP. Susan P. Forman
Making it
Middle Village: Re Voicer Steve Chaddock’s ridiculous complaint: There are no “very rich” people who wear furs waiting for buses. Very rich people usually have their own cars. He is referring to working-class people wearing fake furs taking an express bus at $6.50 a ride back home from their jobs. They don’t want to be sitting in traffic paying for every second that passes that they are not home. They are the rapidly-shrinking middle class and the express bus is the luxury that they can afford.
Samantha Papaccio
Faking it
Baden, Ont.: Does one really have to get upset when the prima donna Mariah Carey can’t perform live without electronics? The public is being scammed especially when the artists are paid big dollars to perform live and the public pays bigger dollars to hear a live performance. The event at Times Square, although “free,” is no excuse for a performer to cheat on doing it live as it begs the question: Are they really that good on their own?
Paul Alexander
A duet News, bad or good
Getty Stockholm, N.J.: I can’t believe that I have something in common with Mariah Carey. I don’t know the words to her songs either!
Nat Saraceni Spotswood, N.J.: Voicer Jennie Giannone states that she is sick and tired of reading about murders, robberies, gun violence, etc. in the Daily News every day. My family (grandfather, father and uncle) delivered the newspapers (Daily News, Post and Times) for over 60 years. As a child, I once asked my father why is there always bad stuff in the newspaper? His response: If they only printed good things, there would be a three-page newspaper, it wouldn’t sell and I’d be starving. Add the internet to the mix and we now live in a world of 24-hour instant access to negativity. What a wonderful world we now live in.
Joe Emma Bronx: I think Voicer Jennie Giannone’s suggestion is an excellent one. Unfortunately, good news doesn’t sell papers.
Denise Kritikos