Subject: Opening Park Row Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:29:54 -0400 To: Scott Gerson From: Bob Armstrong Scott , Great to be seeing your fight in City Council on the 06 13 for= the reopening of Park Row . Not only is its closure an obvious cause of avoidable traffic jams - with their concomitant increase in fuel consumption , pollution and heat generation , but stand as an paragon of the "police state" we have been marching towards . When I have visitors to town I point out to them the enormous area from Brooklyn Bridge to Chinatown and St James to Centre= St. that the police has commandeered and turned into a fortress for themselves in such an incredibly paranoid fashion . I recently heard we have 5 times the police per capita than= other major cities like Los Angeles . And we have recently hired , at a time when we are closing fire houses for lack of funds , at least another score of secret= police costing at least another three quarters of a million dollars ,= to prosecute newly criminalized peaceful behaviors between= consenting adults in spaces they own or carry the rent on . The purpose of the closure eludes me . The whole stretch that= is closed is thoroughfare - no parking or stopping even feasible . Much of the distance is in fact in a tunnel under the park at Police Plaza . It would be a remarkably ineffective place to= place a bomb . Reopening Park Row would signal that the community was in fact in control of the police and we were indeed recovering a normal free and dignified life , not an Orwellian perpetual state of= war . Thank you again for your work which I applaud when it is on the side of the individual citizen . I see what long hours and= tedium your council work entails . Thank you again for your work to break thru this dangerous arrogance on the part of the Police Establishment . Bob A --=A0 =A0Bob Armstrong -- http://CoSy.com -- 212-285-1864 Newsletter : http://cosy.com/K/CoSy/NL200305.htm Ultimate Computing Environment : =A0http://cosy.com/K/CoSy.htm=A0 A WTC vision : http://cosy.com/CoSy/ConicAllConnect/ =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A02003/06/23 10:25:00 AM