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DITORSALSProgress, Finally, at Atlantic TerminalWhen the City Board of Estimate approved the Atlantic Terminal project last week it swung wide the door of opportunity for the people and neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and for all of New York City. The multi-use plan the City officials approved offers a diversity of possibilities across a wide spectrum of housing, employment, environmental and transportation needs for the benefit of everybody.It isn%u2019t just buildings that are going to fill the largely vacant City-owned land at the junction of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Atlantic Terminal isn%u2019t just another development project that will benefit most those who build and use it. It is %u2014 at long last %u2014 something that will fulfill the promises of %u201cprogress%u201d made decades ago when the people and businesses who once thrived in and around this site were uprooted.As the decades have come and gone since the Atlantic Terminal land was removed from productive use, we have seen proposals floated that would have built, at one time or another, such diverse projects as a sports arena and a college campus. But what we have coming now, thanks to the approval last week, is something infinitely better than anything ever seriously considered for this huge site and of far greater benefit to both the people of Brooklyn and those who live in the surrounding neighboods.The development of Atlantic Terminal has, wrongly we think, been lately viewed as a panacea for the ills of our communities. It isn%u2019t and it shouldn%u2019t be. But because the development plan didn%u2019t address some of the latest %u201cpopular%u201d issues, some who should know better delivered grandstanding statements and opposition to the plan at the latest public hearing at City Hall. We think, particularly some of the public officials who stood up and told the Board of Estimate to vote no on the plan should examine their own leadership on the same issues they were seeking addressed in this Atlantic Terminal project.Yes, there are some real, very severe problems that exist in our downtown neighborhoods. Problems of the homeless, problems about affordability of housing, problems of small businesses on neighborhood shopping streets, and problems relating to drugs, jobs and education. But each thing we seek to do must be examined in the light of its greatest contribution to solving them. No one project or development %u2014 not even one as sweeping as Atlantic Terminal %u2014 can address more than a few. Nor should it be expected to. The problem of a lack of low cost housing in New York City, for example, is no more going to be solved at Atlantic Terminal than the community is really going to benefit from the success of a mis-guided lawsuit that seeks to stop the project%u2019s Federal funding on the grounds that it hasn%u2019t provided tor such housing.S%u2019O' SI) F t FEEDBACK FROM READERSArt Show PlannedCongratulations on your Fall Arts Preview issue (Phoenix. Sept 18). Readers were certainly treated to a comprehensive review' of local art events'We would like to inform you and the many people who follow the Ails in the Phoenix of our upcoming Centennial Art Show & Sale. llam-5pm oct. 25th and 26th at 181 Lincoln Place. This show w ill include the w ork of over 50 primarily Brooklyn-based artists and features painting, drawing and sculpture. We hope some of you will come by to see the really exciting work of talented artists.Thank you again for the Arts issue and for your consistent commitment to covering Art m the Phoenix. %u2014 Lenora Brennan, Centennial Projects Director, Berkeley Carroll Street School, 181 Lincoln Place.Questions CoverageThe following is a copy of a letter sent to Hardy Adasko, New York City Public Development Corp. from The New Fort Greene Committee. %u2014 I. Leon Golomb.Dear Hardy:As you may have seen we have written to the Phoenix newspaper about their attitude towards the Atlantic project. (Sound Off, Oct. 2 \Despite their attempted rebuttal (%u201cWe Cover the Whole Story%u201d ), which has some discrepancies of accuracy, we maintain our position; which is that while they have printed letters they are themselves refusing to WTite an editorial article showing support.It is also interesting to note that in a week when the New York Times and the DailyNews printed editorial endorsements for the project that the Phoenix printed editorials about bridges and trade shows. Nor have they covered the City Planning Commission hearing, nor informed and encouraged the public to attend the Board of Estimate hearing. %u2014 I. lAton Golomb.What Happened Here?What is it that causes people to refuse to think or to listen'%u2019 Is it fear9 Fear of loss of life or limb; fear for the safety of their children; fear of plunging property values; fear of loss of control?Was it this kind of immobilizing fear that motivated members of the 200 Bergen Street Block Association to close their eyes and ears and refuse to even consider the possibility of a group home for mentally retarded adults on their block? Or, was it simply selfishness and greed9 %u2014 Mary Ann Fitzgerald, Bergen Street.Take The PledgeAs a member of the Brooklyn chapter of the national Pledge of Resistance, whose members have all vowed to work to oppose U.S. sponsored war in Nicaragua, I am writing to you with an urgent request. Recently four veterans, who since the beginning of September have been fasting to protest the war, spoke in New York.These men, as you will see from reading the press packet I have enclosed, are all laying their lives on the line again, for the principles of justice, freedom and peace. We think the people of Brooklyn have a great interest in their struggle, and a great deal to gain from hearing about it and about the people, many of whom live in this borough, who support them and at the same time do not wish them to. die in a fearful silence of disinterest.I would ask you to read the material I have enclosed in hopes that you will inform your readers of the profound issues involved here, with which a number of Brooklynites are already concerned as I have said, and as you will discover by contacting the Brooklyn Pledge (718-636-0428), the Sister City Project (768-0953), the Brooklyn Mobilization for Survival (622-1289) or many other Brooklynbased groups.My objectivity in this matter is nonexistent, and my politics are clear. Yours need be neither to make this a matter appropriate for either reportage or editorial comment, or both. Please fulfill your obligation to keep the people of Brooklyn informed and let them know about this situation and how it relates to them. Your paper has done an admirable job of reporting the issues in the past, and 1 feel sure you will continue to do so here. %u2014 Christine S. Rodgers, Brooklyn Pledge of Resistance, Prospect Place.Join The Peace MarchSomething Big is crossing America! Peace. On March 1,1986, hundreds of people began a historic walk through 15 states and hundreds of towns and cities. The goal of the walk: global nuclear disarmament. On October 23rd, they will come to New York City for 5 days of actions for Peace, Jobs and Justice. They would like you to join them.Friday, October 24 is International United Nations Day, commemorating the UN%u2019s Year of Peace. In celebration, there will be a parade for global nuclear disarmament led by the Great Peace March. The march will%u00a7 I G N OF THE JA IM ESF ire fig h te rs d e m o n s tra te ag ain st th e M c F a rla n d sexu al h a ra s s m e n t d e c is io n in fro n t of fire h e a d q u a rte rs on Livin g s to n S treet. (P h o e n ix /G a rrity P h o to )gather at Columbus Circle at llarn and march to Dag Hammerskjold Plaza for the rally.On Sunday the 26th, you can be a marcher for the day. Walk from City Hall across the Brooklyn Bridge to Prospect Park. Meet at 10am at. City Hall or join the not-so-athletic Brooklyn Peace Activists at 11am in front of the Unitarian Church, Pierrepont Street and Monroe Place. You may bring your lunch to tht park and join the marchers as they lunch before they march to the Verrizano Bridge and continue over the bridge to New Jersey. There will be entertainment and speakers from the Peace Marchers and our community in i%u2019rospect Park.The Great Peace March would appreciate donations. Send checks payable to the Great Peace March at 310 Madison Avenue, Suite 2110 New York, N.Y. 10017. For more information, call (212) 557-7850. %u2014 Ben Miller, Sidney PlaceMeeting Showed FearsThe 200 Bergen Street Block Association held a meeting last week, and though it was short %u2014 a little more than half an hour %u2014 it revealed much about the hidden fears people have of mental illness and retardation, about others different from them, and about the lack of empathy and tolerance so prevalent in the 1980%u2019s.The story starts with a speculator who lives in Manhattan and who needs to unload an unrenovated brownstone before the end of the year in order to take advantage of the old tax law. Somebody suggested to him a State program to house retarded adults in a homelike setting might be interested in buying the property.Next came a letter to the block association explaining that if residents showed interest an informational meeting would be arranged, and if we showed marked hostility and opposition the deal would be considered null and void. I thought that it showed good faith to block residents unlike many other programs imposed on unwilling communities. I wanted to find out more.I came 20 minutes late expecting my neighbors to leisurely catch up on news of each other over a cup of coffee. Instead everyone seemed tense after a vote had already been taken on a motion not to hear anything more about the program. What little discussion took place before and after the vote bared much ignorance. People appeared ignorant about the difference between mental illness and mental retardation and about what program was actually being talked about. Some were so afraid of any program serving any group %u2014 good or bad %u2014 that they manipulated the meeting to suit their cause.Opponents had come early and insisted on starting on time. Some of my neighbors who came five minutes after the official start of the meeting told me they were dismayed to find themselves outshouted and outnumbered. Opponents had come two or three to a household to try to amass a large negative vote, others, unaware of the emotionally charged atmosphere, had come alone.People who protested at the end of the meeting were admonished by the organizer ot the opponents, Norman Pelier, %u201cNot to divide ine block.1 for one am happy not to be united with people who utter self serving sentiments, are manipulative, intolerant and uncaring. %u2014 Irene Van Slyke, 208 Bergen Street.Page 30, THE PHOENIX, October 16, 1986