‘Turf’ War Erupts

I am happy that Brooklyn Heights residents are fighting the Parks Department’s plan to install artificial turf in Cadman Plaza Park [“‘Turf’ War Erupts Over So-Called Dust Bowl in Cadman Plaza,” Ilya Marritz, New York, August 11, 2005]. The Parks Department has already begun replacing 4 acres of natural soil and grass playing fields with artificial turf in Riverside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. After a year’s efforts – including 600 signatures on a petition – our local community group couldn’t get Parks to reconsider.

The Parks Department wants to install fake grass in many other city parks. It argues that plastic grass will be easier to maintain. But hasn’t the city already covered enough natural earth with artificial surfaces? We must protect nature in our care. I urge residents in all the boroughs to write their elected officials on this issue.

WILLIAM CRAIN
Co-founder
Citizens for a Green Riverside Park
Manhattan

‘Gas Gouging’

The New York Sun editorial on how our city extracts 22 cents in taxes from every gallon of gas was very interesting [“Priming the Pump,” August 25, 2005], especially since the oil companies themselves make only about 20 cents from the same gallon – even after taking all the risks and doing all the work. Next time some politician screams about gas gouging, we’ll know who the real gougers are.

CHRIS WIGERT
Manhattan

‘William Weld, Candidate’

John Stimpson writes that William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who is planning to run in New York State, is “a hawk on crime” [“William Weld, Candidate,” Opinion, August 25, 2005]. Mr. Stimpson is correct: Mr.Weld is a hawk, but he seems to be hawkish in favor of crime. “I’m a big believer in graffiti as a humanizing force,” he said in an interview that appeared in the New YorkTimes Magazine on January 23, 2000.

Writing graffiti on public property is against the law. So is writing graffiti on someone else’s private property. Supporting graffiti is, therefore, a form of supporting lawlessness.

When a different man from Massachusetts, William Bratton, succeeded in controlling graffiti writers, crime went down. Mr. Weld wants to bring back graffiti. That means he wants to bring back crime.

GEORGE JOCHNOWITZ
Manhattan

‘Arts Education’

Re: “Lessons From the Double Dippers,” Andrew Wolf, Opinion, August 26, 2005. Last time Andrew Wolf looked, nearly three and a half years ago, he found that the public school money allocated for arts education was being squandered. Today, the Department of Education’s strict fiscal controls ensure that dedicated arts funding is used for students and professional support for teachers in the arts. The Department has also developed a Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts that provides every school with the content to teach art, music, dance, and theater sequentially from kindergarten to graduation. We have spent the last year training more than 2,000 teachers of art and music to implement the blueprint with their students. In June we trained about half of our 600 teachers of dance and theater. The others will receive training in September.

The blueprint for each art form is on our Web site, www.nycenet.edu/project arts for everyone: teachers, parents, students, administrators. The blueprint requires work with community and cultural resources to properly teach the arts. When you check our Web site, look for the icon for the “Arts and Cultural Services Guide.” The guide directs the reader to more than 250 arts organizations and cultural institutions offering school programs. We are working toward providing a rich instructional program in the arts for every public school.

SHARON DUNN
Senior instructional manager for arts education
New York City Department of Education
Manhattan