To the Editor and Community:

Only on Roosevelt Island can a world-renowned classical guitarist come to perform in our wonderful landmarked church and the air conditioning is not on. Temperatures were at least in the high 80's if not 90's. I've heard about four different stories as to why. I have no idea which story is correct, and I don't really care. What I care about is that nothing works on Roosevelt Island any more, and it's OK with most residents and certainly with RIOC and the RIOC board. How long can they go on not caring about this community? How long will it take to entirely run this Island into the ground? It's really humiliating.

At the concert, after each piece, people had to leave; many older people were nodding off from the heat. I was amazed that Eliot Fisk actually continued to play. I want to thank him for the wonderful concert and hope that he will never be treated as badly as he was last Saturday night.

Vicki Feinmel

To RIOC President Herb Berman:

We had a terrible situation last weekend. The one elevator which is supposed to be working was out of service. Sunday, I went to the garage around 5:20 p.m. My car is on level 6 and I'm asthmatic so, given the heat wave, there was no way I could hike up the stairs. There was also an elderly woman and a neighbor with a heart condition, and a very pregnant woman.

I called Public Safety from my cell phone. First, the officer on duty told me to call Motorgate, but I said that wouldn't help and asked if they could send a car to help us get upstairs. He hung up. I called back and asked for his supervisor; he gave me a runaround. Then he told me that everyone was busy either with a stickball game or towing. He still wouldn't put a supervisor on. Some of the others got the same runaround.

I've lived here for 25 years and, in the past, anyone could call Public Safety if there was a problem getting to the garage, whether a woman who needs to get there at night and is afraid to go in alone, or if there is a problem with an elevator. The attitude of these officers is disgraceful. When there is a situation such as this, PSD needs to be more responsive to resident needs. It is outrageous that dealing with a stickball game or acting like overpriced meter maids seems to be a higher priority for Public Safety officers than helping us in an emergency situation.

As for the elevator situation, the fact that there is no contingency plan in place or provision for access when the elevators are out is indicative of a total disregard for our safety. The platitudinous RIOC notices and the web site's "thank you for your patience" just don't cut it!

There are four elevators and two escalators at Motorgate. When will an elevator be working?

Raye Schwartz

Follow-up e-mail:
Herb,

I understand that you have taken steps to make sure that Public Safety and Motorgate are in communication about when the elevators are out. I also heard that you have taken steps to ensure that the people in Public Safety know that they must assist people who may need to get to their cars when the elevator is out of service.

I want to let you know how much I appreciate your quick response to ensure that Sunday's incident is not repeated. Thanks so much for your help.

Raye Schwartz

To the Editor:

As always, Roosevelt Island Day was a pleasure again this year. RIRA offered our bagel breakfast to the volunteers and then we planted flowers and spruced up the Island for the rest of the morning. The kid's activities and concerts rounded out a perfect day that even the evening storms couldn't dampen.

I was pleased to see RIOC's Michael Moreo on hand with State Emergency Management Office representative, Ted Fisch, to answer questions.

But I wonder every year why the RIOC leadership is never represented on our special days and at our special events? Once again, RIOC President Herb Berman didn't join us, nor did his new number two, Catherine Johnson. Of course, RIOC Public Information Officer John Melia (our own "no show" but well paid $95,000-man) neither knows, interacts with, nor informs the public. RIOC misses no opportunity to alienate itself from the community it purports to administer. Always unfortunate.

Equally unfortunate were the conditions under which the superb guitar concert performed by Eliot Fisk were held. The Chapel of the Good Shepherd was a fiery cauldron as hundreds of Islanders filed in last Saturday; it seems that Fr. Miqueli asked RIOC to do whatever was required by their engineers last week so that the air conditioning could be turned on as needed. RIOC failed to do so, and the Chapel must have reached a temperature of at least 100 degrees. Exacerbating the discomfort were the lights necessary for the video recording done for the Carnegie Hall website. The Carnegie Hall/Citigroup Neighborhood Concert Series sponsored the concert as the first in a series of proposed musical events to be offered by Robin Russell's River Music. If this is how Herb Berman goes about inviting the public to Roosevelt Island, and making this a "destination," as he has called it, this sure ain't the way to welcome visitors.

Since Fr. Luke McKann left, it seems that Father Peter Miqueli has placed many impediments in the way of River Music, which has graced us with world-class music for many years. It is useful to remember that the Chapel is owned by the City and leased to the State under provisions of the Master Lease. The religious congregations, along with the community's civic organizations, use the space at RIOC's pleasure.

For some reason, the church office has been charged with scheduling use by various groups requiring space for their programs. However, the present discrimination against the River Music offerings, not to mention RIRA's failed attempt to use the space for a Saturday evening Orphans International fundraising concert, is inexplicable; Mr. Russell's concerts have invariably been first-class operations not likely to interfere with church functions, damage the furniture, or scare the horses. Why then, these arbitrary judgments on the usage of the Chapel? Concerts all over the world are held on Saturday evenings.

We heard that the air conditioning also was not on in time for Mass last Sunday. Shame on RIOC, again.

Sherie Helstien, Secretary
Roosevelt Island Residents Association

To the Editor:

The question always is: Do we fight injustice or just let it lie; do we sit back and let our community be raped, or do we struggle to escape the wrong?

I moved onto the Island one week after the Tram started, was pressed into becoming a part of the original ten-member Executive Board (we morphed ourselves into the Common Council as we today know it); I was, therefore, privy to what the State of New York told and promised us from the beginning, much of which, deplorably, has turned out to be bait and switch ("B&S," or should we just call it more appropriately what such always is: BS?).

One significant B&S was the matter of population. We were informed that future building on the Island would be confined to four buildings to be developed by Starrett (there are five) and four buildings to be put up at Southtown (nine are slated). That building program, the State assured us, was definitive, would take us to where the Island would financially break even, and would bring us to a maximum population cap of around 16,000. This amount was not arbitrary. The urban planning experts who originally mapped Roosevelt Island decreed that figure to be the full extent of what this baby whale, riding proudly in the river alongside its magnificent Manhattan mother, could comfortably absorb. Two years later, the State - and here I'm referring to all agencies of New York State by whatever name that have had a hand in running Roosevelt Island (the Urban Development Corporation, now Empire State Development Corporation; DHCR, RIOC), all of them puppets with the Governor pulling the ultimate strings - the State informed us it was changing the population figure from 16,000 to 20,000. We on the Common Council decried this, fearing that at 20,000, our little community would surely burst. But "fight City Hall" we then couldn't, and imagining 20,000 people here we then couldn't, so that switch became another New York State fait accompli, another something we were force-fed.

Maybe it's time we caused the State to regurgitate that extra 4,000 figure, since we now can grasp the enormity of just how many more buildings it would take to satisfy that amount. We face a potential future overmass situation which we really should not let happen. Can we hold the State's feet to the fire on the 16,000 originally planned? Certainly the State has rung in Octagon under our noses. Certainly additional buildings will go up at Southtown (all of which should make us more than self-sufficient - a good thing). Certainly the State has its greedy eye on more open spaces, including Southpoint (a bad thing). Certainly with Octagon and Southtown fully loaded we might well surpass 16,000. Zut! We're overpopped! Can we allow yet more overzealous building, allowing our way of life here to be altered adversely?

Scientists tell us that in mice experiments, an overabundance of rodents in a confined area inevitably leads to a diminution in standard of living. What's true of mice is true of men. Do we need a lowering of quality of life - is the issue worth a fight? Are we not a segment of people, already oppressed by never having been given the "luxury" of true democracy on this Island - the only enclave to be so deprived in the entire United States? Are our voices never to be heard, always to be overshouted by one of the most powerful states in the Union?

Surely, as Jim Baehler wrote (The WIRE, June 4), our land is valuable and, in the State's eyes, expendable for more and more development. But who is this Chamberlain-like appeaser - resident or member of the RIOC gang? Why must we, as he advocates, sit back and casually negotiate away not just our dwindling precious open spaces, but a way of life - a non-stifling way of life? Or would he have us become engulfed in a claustrophobic cloudbank of bipeds? The State, rapaciously hungry for all the money it can possibly wrest from our dead bodies (even post-self-sufficiency), is obviously telling us the hell with our quality of life. Did RIOC "give away" Southtown, etc., in order that we not become self-sufficient before much more is built, thereby justifying their open-space grabs? And what of the State's early-on promise that when the Island became financially independent, we would be given home rule? Another B&S! With the RIOC Board packed with State sympathizers we will not, unfortunately, have true home rule until every square inch on this Island becomes not open, but closed. RIOC, how about putting up more edifices on our existing rooftops? Or did you miss that one?

Perhaps we should solicit a study to be performed by impartial experts, not in the pocket of the State, as to how many people we actually can viably sustain. Could Columbia's School of Urban Planning again come to our aid? Can the Island housing companies be counted on to give us unbiased totals of those living in their buildings? What do we have to do to protect ourselves from being overrun - all lie down in front of the bulldozers during the State's next open-spaces building offensive, only to face a stint in jail?

Barbara Potts