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Page 10, PHOENIX, June 13, 1974E d ito r ia lsProgram Doomed?We were dismayed, along with all the other community leaders in South Brooklyn and Park Slope, over the abrupt and arbitrary cancellation of the Community Forum on neighborhood government that had been scheduled for May 30. The legislative attitude toward an exploratory discussion of legitimate concerns over the future of the idea of neighborhood government is puzzling and does not augur well for the future.With the Chairman of the City Planning Commission, the Director of the Mayor%u2019s Office of Neighborhood Government, and an elected City Councilman as the %u2018 %u2018stars%u201d of the evening (they had each agreed to attend and speak), the interest and enthusiasm was high. It is tragic for these men, or whoever is actually responsible for pulling the stop, to fear this kind of open exchange among people who are enthusiastic supporters of a concept.These days, everybody is looking for %u201c signs%u201d to help predict what%u2019s ahead in the Beame Administration. There is particular concern here over the future of the Task Force and the idea of neighborhood government because it has made enormous contributions to the renewal of the Slope and South Brooklyn. When the man whom the Mayor has charged with the responsibility for overseeing the neighborhood government program won%u2019t face the public in a meeting he has helped call, the natural conclusion many community workers are drawing is that such programs are out. We are particularly disappointed that the chairman of the Planning Commission, a Carroll Gardens resident himself, was a party to this shabby affair.What it all seems to be saying is that the possibility of some kind of new program of neighborhood government, or a continuation of theoldone, isunlikely. We hope this isn%u2019t true, but in the absence of a better explanation than was given to the public last week, that is the natural conclusion. We ask John Carty, director of the Neighborhood Government Office, to, please, say it isn%u2019t so.A Long-Felt NeedThe decision of the Brooklyn Heights Board of Trade to cooperate with the City and the Brooklyn Heights Association in a City-conducted study of Montague Street and the surrounding commercial area gives a great boost to a long-felt need.Montague Street is a unique %u201c main street%u201d to Brooklyn Heights, and at the same time serves the government-commercial officecomplex on Court Street. This creates special problems, but also gives Heights and other nearby residents a more vital shopping area than might otherwise be the case.But, we echo the statement of one speaker at the public meeting this week. He pointed out we must remember that, above all, Montague Street is an integral part of Brooklyn Heights-residential Brooklyn Heights%u2014and change and/or improvements must reflect this primary consideration.Anyone Listening ?Despite repeated inquiries and pleas for some kind of official action regarding the slowness of response of the ambulance service at Long Island College Hospital, all we hear from the City Health and Hospitals Corporation is an argument about whose iape record is more correct. We don%u2019t understand why there has still been no official indication from any supervising government body that they, too, areconcerned over the record that we repeated once again last week which documented the difficulty and resultant delay in getting the hospital to respond to an emergency case two blocks from its emergency room door. Why is there no response?The PHOENIX is published 50 times a year by advocate Press, Inc., 155 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11201. Single copy price is 154; annual subscription by mail in New York State, effective July 1, 1973, is $5.00; outside New York State, $6.00.Michael A. Armstrong, Editor & PublisherE lto n Blair, Managing Editor155 Atlantic Avenue r s r f , fe lT iBrooklyn 11201Tei.lyn 11201 M3-1032gitiiiiHiHM>ttiaiiiiwiiiawi8ittgttiiiitiiiKiatHMiimiiimiimnntiuiiiiiiiiiiniiHnMiiiiimnHiitnuuimiiiiiiiHH>flmnwiL etters to the EditorHospital Committee DisturbedBy Planning Comm's Deaf EarTo the Editor:I hope that you will be able to print the enclosed letter which was sent to City Planning Commission Chairman John Zuccotti, in your Letters to the Editor column. Thank you.Very truly yours, Zita FearonDear Chairman Zuccotti:We consumer and community members of the Ambulatory Care Services Advisory Committee at Methodist Hospital are disturbed to hear that the City Planning Commission has provisionally agreed to the closing of Sixth Street to vehicular traffic for M ethodist Hospital, pending an open public meeting on the question.We consider it unnecessary and undesirable to close Sixth Street. However, there are items which we do consider both necessary and desirable for the adequate delivery of health care to our community. The items which are of concern to us have been incorporated into theUnfair toReformersTo the Editor:As an interested party in independent, reform politics I am compelled to speak out on the process of redistricting as practiced by the Republican majority in Albany in concert with influential Democratic leaders.The present configurations of the 52nd Assembly District and the 25th Senatorial District reveal deliberate efforts to eliminate reform representation as evidenced primarily by the carving up of Carol Bellamy%u2019s seat. Further, disruption of the integral community of Brooklyn Heights (the Cadman Plaza development) exmtms acute disregard for neighborhood contiguity. In cooperation with Assemblyman Pesce, 1 have protested these maneuverings as cynical efforts performed under the guise of expanding minority representation.Sincerely,Salvatore A. Ferraioli,n - %u2014 : a %u2014 * 1 IV J IU C lll,Independent NeighborhoodDemocratsCommunity Alternate Plan by the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development. The Hospital has not yet seen fit to seriously consider our concerns, and continues in its planning as if we do not exist.While we understand that the City Planning Commission is restricted to a large degree to the consideration of physical planning rather than health planning, we think it important that you know that the physical plan, in this case, plays a very large role in determining the health plan. For example, we are very concerned that in the Hospital plan, the Clinic and the Emergency Room will be as far apart as possible, splitting the Department of Ambulatory Care and creating severe problems in the areas of triage, Medical Records, Pharmacy, Laboratory and X-ray. We believe that the Clinic and Emergency Room should be close toeach other and the common ancillary services, and that they should be located on the block where the Hospital is now located, keeping all the health-related elements together. This would eliminate the need for any connection between the two blocks under the bed of Sixth Street.The consumer and community members of the Ambulatory Care Services Advisory Committee would like to have a meeting with you to discuss our concerns before the public meeting.Zita Fearon, Chairwoman Janette Cooke Barbara Storace Elizabeth Loughlin Harry Mapp Larry McGaughey Angela Beni James Nony Louise Finney Minnie SunfistBY DAN ICOLARIIn his article %u201c Brooklyn in the Year 2,000%u201d reprinted in the June 6 PHOENIX, Peter D. Salins, Chairman of the Department of Urban Affairs at Hunter College, theorizes on the spread of the brownstoning movement. He says that by the end of this century West Central Brooklyn %u201c will be home to the most extensive collection of restored nineteenth-century townhouses in the United States.%u201dConsidering the almost predictable pace of brownstoning, a process in which neighborhood after neighborhood has been %u201c discovered%u201d by the middle class, Salins%u2019s projection is probably quite accurate.But there%u2019s a hitch. Like most academics, Salins sounds incredibly detached from his subject, when he says that neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are in %u201c consolidation%u201d phases now (which means%u2666 Hnir* narlA H c r\\f Hle/v\\\\/on/ onH * ......... IWV VI VIWV %u00bb VI J --------rapid speculative growth are largely over) and that Boerumand Cobble Hill will be %u201c consolidated%u201d by 1980, the brownstoning movement sounds less like a way of solving housing problems and more I ike a cynical pattern of exploitation to which we all become parties.The victims, as usual, are the poor. Says Salins, %u201c Needless to say, this process entails the displacement of the indigenous inhabitants of the neighborhoods affected. The pace at which areas move through the cycle is determined to a large extent by the ethnic and class complexion of the native populations, and the ease with which they can be displaced.%u201dIn a part of his article not reprinted in The PHOENIX, Salins posits the idea that the outer regions of the borough such as East Flatbush and Canarsie will likely become the new slums, as the poor are pushed out of the downtown area.T %u2019h ie io + rvor+ r\\i th oI I MW IV il IV V V< IVI fVWU % VI IVdream. Do we really want it tocome true?