A Little Victory

Who could've possibly imagined, in this day and age and under this administration, that vox populi could actually get City Hall to alter any of its inevitably wrong-headed "improvement" plans? It's never worked in the past. The mayor or one of his minions will get an idea-a West Side stadium, a shopping mall on the Coney Island boardwalk, closing all the strip clubs in town-and that's that. They don't give a rat's ass what you or we have to say about it.

But last week it was announced-on the very morning our editorial on the matter hit the streets-that the Parks Department had scrapped its plan to install locking gates around Washington Square Park. At a public hearing about the plan, folks made it perfectly clear that the idea flew in the face of what the neighborhood has always stood for, and they wouldn't stand for it.

The rest of the renovations designed to sterilize the park will move ahead as scheduled, but at least the park will remain open, and those lovely drunken midnight strolls will not become another bit of New York lore.

Granted, this was a small-scale challenge and didn't involve billions in corporate-development money, but it's worth a cheer. Now if we could just get them to listen to us when it comes to the West Side Stadium, the Olympics, Ground Zero, Mister Softee trucks and the imminent C.H.U.D. assault?