Dear Editor: The following is a letter to Mayor Brian Stack
Dear Mayor Brian Stack:
Thank you for our new view of Manhattan! By felling a forest of sycamore trees and replacing them with a state-of-the-art-artificial-turf stadium, you and a crowd of construction workers with earth- moving machines inadvertently opened up the view northeast from Webster Avenue and Paterson Plank Road. That’s the good side. Sadly, Union City appears to have overlooked an army of rush-hour pedestrians who walk east on Paterson Plank as their only access to the 123 and 119 bus stops because these conveyances are their sole means of transport to livelihoods in New York City.
Now these folks must dodge the rush-hour traffic and risk life and limb just to get to and from work each day. This is because there is no sidewalk anymore on the Union City side, and the Jersey City sidewalk between New York Avenue and Palisade Avenue is a tortured scree bordering a filling station and an abandoned property. Neither gas station nor absentee landlord remove ice and snow during winter, resulting in something like a bobsled run. So be informed, sir. This seriously- dangerous-to-the-elderly-disabled-or-distracted pathway, the only pathway to these buses, is no longer swept under the rug. It is published here. One hopes you will take note and immediately at least provide a decent sidewalk there on the north side of Patterson Plank Road, and perhaps convince Hudson County to fix the south side.
Thank you,
Steve Singer