Submitted by Elizabeth Rose, Jan 5, 2007 12:56

Your comments about Hunter College's proposal to build a new tower at 2nd avenue and 67th street tells only a portion of the story. The critical missing element is that these plans would takeover and destroy a building that currently houses one of the most succesful urban education complexes in the country. The Gates Foundation sends school administrators from around the country to see the Julia Richman Education Complex. This complex houses 6 small schools ranging from Kindergarten through High School. These schools achieve outstanding educational results with primarily low-income and low achieving students.

Hunter College -- like many of the hospital expansions noted in your column -- cares only for its own needs, and disregards its impact on the surrounding community.

Our city cannot survive without regard to the residents who live here, the children who need strong schools, the pockets of lower density and open space that make the city environment livable. Why does no one in real estate ever acknowledge that unfettered development has a human cost that will ultimately destroy the diversity and inclusion that attract many people to our city in the first place?

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