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Bus riders and their needs
On “Transit Center: Positive Marks and One Big Problem” (news): I use the buses and transit center daily. There continues to be a need for a grassroots organization of bus riders who depend on the bus. These riders are most often those with the least power and live in the city. This would go a long way toward filling unmet needs, including those of riders from city neighborhoods. Those interviewed in this article do not represent this group.
I would also suggest that while there have been some incidents, I do not think that because a large number of students are there, that indicates frequent incidents. It is also my understanding that the reason for using public transportation for students was to save money. That decision-making was never shared with adult bus riders.
The number of students does affect the crowding on the buses. Using former school buses would help to secure students getting to their homes. I would hope, however, that racism was not the rationale.
There are other issues related to the transit center: More attention needs to be paid to clearing snow and clearing ice in the area from the outside stops on Mortimer to the front entrance. The center needs dollar money-change machines. Not all buses have stalls in the center. The route changes that began in January have caused fare increases. There’s a lack of seating in some areas; because the center had to be placed in a small, narrow space, there was not enough space inside to accommodate seating in all the bus stall areas.
BONNIE CANNAN
On “Are We Really Willing to Tackle Poverty”? Urban Journal: Depends who is meant by “we.” The Fight for 15 group is ready. As you imply, the same people and institutions who have been running the community for decades are not ready. The advocates for a living wage are ready. The opponents of the Fight for 15 and a living wage are not ready to change. As a case worker for Monroe County social services, every client I met had a first priority of working at a living wage job.
I look forward to more on this from you in the weeks to come. I hope you write about the devastating loss of jobs perpetrated by the captains of industry and their willing accomplices in government. It is part of a deliberate policy of driving down wages and benefits to the advantage of the wealthy and the detriment of workers. That policy can be reversed.
The status quo must go!
SALLY MCCOY
Monroe needs a new name
What’s in a name? And should we consider it a problem? What would the reaction be to change the county name to KingGeorge3ville, or Kaisergrad, or even Mussolinistan? And yet there doesn’t seem to be any objection to the county being named after a president who not only owned slaves but was governor of a slave state.
Some time ago I realized that I didn’t know very much about Monroe and did a net search. The very first hit was a report of him cheering on the whipping of an African-American woman — yes, a slave — but there hasn’t been any other references to that incident that I can find. The rest is verified history.
Can’t we do better? Perhaps we can begin by acknowledging the fact that most of the presidents from Lincoln to Johnson are generally the best politician for the job and not necessarily some greater-than-life figure.
ROBERT BENVENUTI
Poverty war a waste
Your graph, “People in Poverty” (Urban Journal) exposes the abject failure of LBJ’s “War on Poverty.” Only government would continue and expand a total failure.
In 1970, only 1 in 92 city residents lived under the poverty-line, now almost 20 percent do. Why blame 60,000 people who moved out when bureaucratic programs are the problem?
Ever wonder if the War on Poverty was really designed to create cushy jobs for bureaucrats? Maybe there’d be less poverty if government eliminated wasteful programs and reduced taxes?
Are there answers to poverty and the growth of poverty? Yes! But those answers aren’t the ones which haven’t been working for 50 years of this “war.”
RICK NUDD
Requiem for Andy Hammond
Hammond, a fixture of Rochester’s café culture, died on February 6 (news).
I met Andy during Mercury Opera Rochester’s production of “Showboat.” He was just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, very down to earth, very smart, and very talented.
I would see him whenever I went past Java’s and I always worried if he had had enough to eat, was he warm enough? He would never ask anyone for anything, but sometimes I would get him a coffee and one of Java’s jumbo-sized cookies. I have no idea if he even liked sweets, but he always graciously accepted it. I’m really sad to hear that he passed on.
LYNN ZICARI
Kudos on the evocative article about my brother Andy. He was indeed a unique and talented individual, and it would have pleased him very much to know that people are remembering his music and his stories.
GHSOBOTA
I spent many mornings chatting with Andrew about music, theater, and toward the end, the maddening red tape he faced getting social services.
I loved listening to his accordion. My favorite thing he played was “Because” by The Beatles. Those harmonies were great and he played with a gentle, haunting feel. I’ll miss him.
JON GARY
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2015.
Rochester’s historic Carnegie Building at 274 North Goodman Street can now officially be demolished, marking a significant loss to what has remained of the University of Rochester’s old Prince Street campus.
Had to try to save this wonderful building, and certainly worth doing so, despite the obstacles. And not simply because my great-grandfather, Professor Herman LeRoy Fairchild, U of R Professor of Geological and Natural Sciences, had his office in the Carnegie Building a century ago.
This fine structure facing the Memorial Art Gallery across the old campus lawn represents an integral part of this now-disappearing historic campus. Such fine masonry craftsmanship as seen there would never be duplicated today. Character and history have a cachet that cannot be replicated by new construction.
Rehabilitation was certainly a viable option, but was not as simple for everyone as was demolition. The easier method was selected, with none of the persons involved in the process seriously examining how to rehabilitate the building, instead simply brushing aside that alternative.
The City of Rochester currently has about 5,000 structures officially termed “Designated Buildings of Historic Value” (D.B.H.V), of which the Carnegie Building was one. Such buildings cannot be demolished without permission from the City Zoning Board of Appeals, unless an emergency threat to public safety intervenes.
Building owners over the years have seemed all too ready to invoke this loophole to historic preservation. The resulting dialogue is thus whether to demolish, not how to save and rehabilitate.
My belief is that “emergency” scenarios should first call for fencing the public away from any risky situation, and then promptly analyzing in good faith what it would take to do a respectful rehabilitation of the building at issue. Only then could demolition and rehabilitation be compared with each other to establish the best course forward, considering both the economics and the diminishing surviving heritage of the City of Rochester.
This issue of demolition vs. rehabilitation will continue to arise with numerous other of the 5,000 D.B.H.V. buildings in the city, such as the church on West Main Street proposed for demolition for some type of big box store.
More effective protection of our heritage via D.B.H.V designation needs to be addressed prior to other such crises arising, with more emphasis on how to save our remaining important buildings.
On the Carnegie Building, the hearing officer could just as easily have found that any danger to the public was in abeyance while the chain link fence around the building stayed in place during rehabilitation work.
Most of the original post-and-beam construction of this century-old building survives in good condition, as I witnessed inside the building. The undamaged vertical timbers inside the building bore the weight of the transverse horizontal beams.
The exterior walls were designed to bear their own weight on a free-standing basis. These exterior walls supported only the extremities of the horizontal beams, which were already being cantilevered from interior vertical posts.
The only wall removal that has happened thus far was the middle section between two corners on the North Goodman Street side, where the surviving parts of the walls constituted right-angle bracing to the longer front and back walls.
The structural situation parallels the similar configuration on West Main Street in the Nothnagle Building, whose design a Carnegie Building rehabilitation may well have emulated.