Letters

Help Preserve Park

A copy of the following letter was received by the Gazette.

Queens Borough President

Claire Shulman

The West Cunningham Park Civic Association, while acknowledging that there has been some renovation of Cunningham Park, wishes to state that more must be done to bring this well used park up to specifications.

You and many legislators are always in the park when the Philharmonic presents the spectacular summer concert or the Metropolitan Opera stars sing or one of the many different ethnic concerts or events take place. Surely you must notice the eroded hills, the denuded areas, the tree roots sticking up, the cracked circular walking path, the depressed areas which are often filled with water for days after a heavy rain.

Did you ever visit the main comfort station in the rear of the park office building, adjacent to the circular track? The toilets are often broken, some of the sink fixtures don’t work, and the rooms look dreary. The worst of all, is the fact that there are not enough stalls in the women’s room plus the building is so old that it is not handicapped accessible. Mr. Ben Fried, the West Cunningham Park Civic Association Park chairman, has learned that [City] Councilmember Sheldon Leffler has offered some more money to do some repairs there but we should obtain a larger sum of money to make this very heavily used old comfort station a modern facility.

We are pleased that the Queens Parks Department has replaced the fence, sidewalk and steps along 193rd Street and that Councilman Leffler has money to upgrade the 196th Place and 193rd Street entrances along Union Turnpike. We also have a letter from parks Commissioner Henry Stern with the information that Queens Commissioner Rich Murphy and Manager Jim Cafaro will plant trees to stop the erosion and work to fix the flooding at some of the baseball fields, but there is so much more to be done.

Ben Fried and myself plus the Friends of Cunningham Park will keep pressing for the big bucks which are needed to renovate Cunningham Park because the condition of the park is an embarrassment to the thousands who use it daily.

Bob Harris

President

West Cunningham Park Civic Association

Bush Be Warned

A copy of the following letter was received by the Gazette.

Dear President-elect [George W] Bush:

The real meaning of your recent close-call election is that G-D has put you and the United States of America on probation.

It is said that you are a deeply religious man, that you read the Bible often and take its lessons to heart. You are, therefore, most probably familiar with the story of Jonah, who was sent to warn the people of the great city-state of Nineveh of their imminent destruction. His warning brought the people of Nineveh to repentance, and thus their destruction was averted.

You have a similar task: All too many Americans today subscribe to a self-centered credo that is pagan, hedonist, atheist, and nihilist. Like that evil genius Hitler, they consider the murder of inconvenient people—babies and the elderly—legitimate. The blood of millions of innocents cries out for justice.

Legitimate in their eyes are sodomy, pornography and all manner of sexual excess. Illegitimate by them is the recognition of G-D's benevolence in our schools and public places.

The recent election demonstrated that the country is evenly divided between those who understand and support the Biblical moral traditions of this country and those who do not.

With your election, G-D has granted this country a temporary reprieve from the inevitable judgment that must be visited on an immoral nation. It is up to you to turn this country away from evil before G-D delivers the final blow, and America joins Rome, Greece and Persia in the dustbin of history.

You have been given the awesome responsibility to respond to this challenge. You have the choice of presiding over America's destruction or its rebirth.

May G-D grant you the wisdom and and the strength to succeed.

Lew Abramson

Jews for Morality