Dear Editor:
I ask all people of Hoboken who care about Liberty State Park to take part in the climactic battle for the park’s future by urging the Governor to terminate the state’s contract with the park’s public-be-damned Development Corporation (DC). For 18 years, this private corporation has delayed park progress and wasted years of people’s time fighting its commercialization plans such as a golf course, waterpark and large commercial amphitheater with its traffic jams.
Many Hoboken residents, with your own experience in fighting profiteers who try to confiscate our urban waterfront, have joined past battles to stop the DC’s threats to this green public land next to Lady Liberty and Ellis Island. In the fall, Hoboken will be connected to the park by the Light Rail and the park shuttle. The park has open spaces, the state’s largest children’s playground and will eventually have a 200 acre natural area with trails.
The Governor has a clear choice, to listen to the broad public consensus for a Central Park-type Liberty Park or to cave in to the heavy pressure of the DC’s Big Money allies trying to prevent its termination. The Governor can be a hero or he can be a collaborator with the park’s internal enemy.
Your help is needed. Please write to Governor James McGreevey at P.O. Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625 and urge him to evict this arrogant gang from our urban state park. Only when the corporation is gone, will the bells of freedom ring from Liberty State Park.
Sam Pesin, President
Friends of Liberty State Park