Letters to the Editor
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‘Ferry Will Speed to Coney Island from the Battery’
An article in the January 11 issue of The New York Sun referred to Battery Park as “the site where Peter Minuit bought the rights to the island” [New York, “Ferry Will Speed to Coney Island from the Battery,” January 11 2007].
Despite the longstanding legend, it is not certain that it actually was Minuit who bought the rights to the island. There is no official record of the transaction. Its existence is known only through a letter from a resident of New Amsterdam written shortly after Minuit was appointed the chief executive of the settlement, that refers to the purchase as having occurred. The date, place, and participants are not named in the letter. Thus the buyer of Manhattan island could have been Minuit or Wilhelm Verhulst, his predecessor as director. The location could have been the Battery, elsewhere on the island, on Long or any nearby island, or even New Jersey. Huguenot Heritage is a nonprofit historical organization devoted to preserving and disseminating information about the Huguenot/Walloons and their descendants, including Pierre Minuit.
LOIS STEWART
Research director
Huguenot Heritage
New York, N.Y.
‘A Saudi Princess Speaks Out’
I am disappointed with The Sun’s noncritical front-page emphasis on the statement by Princess Al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia that, if she could be, in Tom Friedman’s silly phrase, “‘queen’ for a day,” she would “let women drive” [Weekend Edition, “A Saudi Princess Speaks Out,” January 26-28, 2007].
Given the manifold outrages of the Saudi regime, letting women drive is hardly a basic moral remedy. Mr. Friedman obviously fell for it, though, as did Sally Buzbee of the Associated Press, who concluded that Saudi Arabia is not the monolithic culture it appears to be but, rather, is a place where “different opinions and vigorous debate exist in private.”
It is shockingly ingenuous not to realize that anything said by a member of the Saudi royal house is carefully orchestrated and vetted. The princess was dispatched to “soften” the Saudi image for the benefit of Westerners eager to see such “softness.”
HELAIN SMITH
New York. N.Y.
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