St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan seeks to demolish five of its buildings in order to build a medical tower and a luxury high-rise condominium in order to finance its operations. The complex lies south of Fourteenth Street in the Greenwich Village Historical District, an area this writer knows well.
Actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins who live a block from the hospital came to the hearings held by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to oppose the proposal as reported by Glenn Collins of the New York Times http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/actors-chime-in-on-st-vincents-new-plan/ In their arrogance, the wealthy couple disparaged the hospital. Other self-styled "progressives" who are in fact reactionaries against whatever is new in New York City spoke out against the hospital’s proposal.
In a welcome development, SEIU 1199 Healthcare Workers members joined hospital president Henry J. Amoroso in a demonstration for the hospital’s proposal as reported in the NY Times article.
How should we see this? Losing these aging buildings are no loss.
But the real issue at stake is that It is the hospital’s property and they have the right to build in my view as a libertarian. Eminent domain abuse, urban renewal, and landmarks preservation laws should not exist. They should build anything they want to that does not physically harm their neighbors.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission is a monument to elitists, usually wealthy, to impose their wishes on the property owners and the community as a whole to preserve what they like. These landmarks preservation laws represent the height of arrogance and elitism. It is ironic justice that the people who are imbued with a collectivist and statist ideology which they call progressive are in fact standing against progress and change. But the socialists and statists of all stripes are the enemies of progress and humanity itself.
We hear so often from such people about the public good. In this case, they are putting their architectural prejudices over the public good of health care.
I am neither infatuated with the new nor reverential of the past. My childhood wish was to be an archaeologist. So I do value the old. But I would not violate the property rights of a single person for the sake of keeping the city a museum.
How can the readers help? Contact the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and express how you think and indicate where you live. http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/contact/contact.shtml
Cities and communities are for the living and the future, not the dead hand of the past. Let us shower with scorn elitist statist pests like Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Let us join in saying with the workers who demonstrated "Let St Vincent’s build. We deserve a world-class hospital." -30-
(Richard Cooper is the export/import manager of a Long Island, New York manufacturing firm. He has been an activist against eminent domain such as Atlantic Yards and for property rights as the former Chair of the Libertarian Party of New York www.ny.lp.org. The Libertarian Party www.lp.org is running Bob Barr for president www.bobbarr2008.com)
NY Times Building Climbers Protest Wrong Causes https://groundreport.com/articles.php?id=2862703