Letters to the Editor

What You Say

Brawny Trowels?

I looked hard in [News, "Women's Work," Dana Henry, March 6, 2008] for some indication that the "huge gender gap in the building trades" might have its cause in the physiological or sociological differences between men and women, but not a word could I find.

Evolution has deemed that the average man has more upper-body strength than the average woman. Many activities in the building trades require considerable strength. (Ever try to lift a piece of Sheetrock or concrete blocks?) Consequently, the average man is better designed to work in the building trades than the average woman.

This is not to say that there aren't women who excel in the trades or men who wouldn't last a day in them; they both exist. Nor does it excuse any institutional sexism, if that does exist in this day and age. But it does mean that any attempt to achieve parity between men and women in the trades is a fool's errand.

I look forward to a forthcoming article, "Why the Huge Gender Gap in Administrative Assistants?"

Andrew Terhune
Center City

You need to get a life and let Mayor Street enjoy his post-mayoral life in peace! [News, "Professor Street Says," March 6, 2008] I don't understand why people in this city have so much hate for the man. Perhaps if we focus more energy on other things, it might benefit our city. What a waste of time.

"Essence"
Via citypaper.net

Dear Beer Week planners [Cover Story, "Beer. Here." Tim Hyland, Feb. 28, 2008]: I just wanted to let you know how sad I will be in knowing that I will have to miss Beer Week. You guys had to plan it during Temple's spring break, didn't you? I suggest that in the future you check to see when the local universities are on break because our campuses are teeming with beer-crazed students who would love to put down the books for a week to partake in Philly's fine brews. Well, I'll be dreaming of Philly while I'm out in Colorado snowboarding, wishing I was slammin' down a local brew rather than tapping the Rockies. Oh well, maybe next year.

Gene S.
North Philly

I thought [Home and Design, "Design on a Nickel," Jason Tomassini, Feb. 21, 2008] was good in many regards, but as one of the sources quoted in your article, I would like to clarify a few items.

I told the author to use a burning stick of incense, not a candle, to monitor air leakage around windows doors and under baseboards. On a cool, very windy day, homeowners should turn off their furnace, shut all windows and doors, turn on all exhaust fans that blow air outside (such as bathroom fans or stove vents) and pass the incense around the edges of common leak sites (window frames, electrical and gas service entrances, etc). Wherever the smoke is sucked out of or blown into the room, there's a draft.

Homeowners might be interested in "low-flow" shower heads, not "low-pressure" — 0.5 to 1.75 gpm (gallon per minute) showerheads are by no means "low-pressure" — they feel much like their standard 2.5 gpm counterparts, but they use air pressure to give you more bang for your buck on your water heating bill. I also recommended a white elastomeric or acrylic roof coating (not "paint," as written). Otherwise, well done.

Travis Douglas
Re:Vision Architecture

I work in marketing and communications for Spiral Q Puppet Theater. Thanks so much for the shout-out in Philly Madness [Naked City, citypaper.net/phillymadness, March 6, 2008] this year! We were so pumped to find ourselves on the list! The format is so user-friendly that even we were able to figure out how to find it after one of out volunteers mentioned that they saw us on the list.

Chloe Tucker
spiralq.org

Board Appeal

John Nernoff's defense of waterboarding [Feedback, "Waterbored," March 6, 2008], while fascinating, was inherently flawed.

For starters, the only people who consider Alan Dershowitz a liberal are Alan Dershowitz and misguided conservatives trying to make a point: Real liberals have abandoned Dershowitz largely due to his defense of torture and apologies for Israel's policies toward the Palestinians.

Secondly, it wasn't until John Yoo and the other neo-cons in the Bush administration that waterboarding's designation as torture became questioned: After all, the U.S. Army bans the practice, it's outlawed by the quaint Geneva Conventions, it's been known as torture since the days of the Inquisition, and the United States successfully prosecuted the Japanese for war crimes for using this ghastly form of torture during World War II.

Finally, despite Nernoff's questionable assertions that torture works, the fact is that torture victims will say whatever their tormentor wants them to say to make the torture stop. I can prove this in the comfort of my kitchen if Mr. Nernoff would allow me to test my theory on him. I guarantee you that after less than 10 minutes of waterboarding, Mr. Nernoff will admit to his role in both the Kennedy assassination and 9/11, will sign papers saying he sold uranium to Saddam Hussein, express admiration for Keanu Reeves' acting abilities and just about anything else to make me stop drowning him.

Brendan Skwire
West Philadelphia, brendancalling.com

Ms. Larson has characterized Tom Lussenhop's proposed 11-story Hilton at 40th and Pine as not being "responsible development." She may be on the money when it comes to the outsized mass of the building, but irresponsible certainly [does not?] jibe with Lussenhop's decision to restore the Italianate mansion.

Mr. Popkin's main point is not necessarily that the proposed use is the appropriate one. What he's saying is that the knee-jerk "no" that often greets proposals is not the way to help Philadelphia continue to weave its rich, variegated, urban fabric. I think he is convinced that if the developer could make the deal work at six stories, the neighbors would still line up against it.

I grew up in Philadelphia, and people always told me it was "the city of neighborhoods." And that was true for me. I went to Central and had friends from all over. But is it still true for the majority of people today? I don't know. What I do know is that it isn't true for most of the people who visit our city. And that's a shame, because there are a lot of Coltrane Houses and Wagner Institutes and American Bandstand Studios around town that no one but the most intrepid urban explorer will ever find.

Next time you go to San Francisco, if you are not staying with friends, check out the local hotel scene. You can stay in almost any neighborhood in the city. The scale is a human one, but the main drags have an intensity that allows for many uses. On the surface, I actually don't think 11 stories towering over 40th Street is right. But I'm out here in Nevada and haven't laid eyes on the plans. Either way, however, I think a hotel at 40th and Pine is a terrific idea.

One last thing: Mr. Popkin was accused of ignoring Spruce Hill's scale, its qualities and its monuments. He really isn't. After all, he's the one who wrote the Spruce Hill Community Renewal Plan and, I must admit, I co-wrote it. He knows every brick in the sidewalk.

That plan won the Outstanding Planning Award from the Pennsylvania Planning Association back in 1996, back when there were hundreds of houses for sale in the neighborhood, dozens of board-ups and lots of crime. That was before the University City District existed and before the UC Brite program lit up 150 blocks and before the 40th Street corridor got all fancied up.

Mr. Popkin never left. You don't have to invite him to ride the 34 or any other trolley to come out to see your neighborhood. He already does.

Harmon Zuckerman

Harmon Zuckerman graduated from Penn with a master's degree in city and regional planning about 10 years ago and is now the chief planner for Douglas County, Nev.

Now that the SugarHouse has been postponed, maybe permanently, so we can look for arrowheads and pottery scraps, we can rejoice in old Philadelphia! Certainly the casinos would have caused incredible traffic problems and Philadelphia would have been forced to modernize its archaic traffic infrastructure which can be enjoyed by driving the comically counter-timed lights on Girard Avenue and basking in the 19th-century charm of the city's lazy reliance on stop signs which guarantee that traffic moves at wagon speed.

Sarcasm aside, Philadelphia has major traffic-flow problems that need to be addressed. The streets are the veins of a city and right now they're clogged. You can have all the green initiatives you want but if you have a growing economy it's going to cause more traffic, and the city has to have a plan for it. Before you do major construction there are plenty of small changes, like timing lights and replacing stop signs with lights on many streets, that could be done.

The residents who will complain about stop signs being replaced and increased traffic flow on their "residential" streets should move to the suburbs and stop pretending that Philadelphia is a quaint New England town. This is a city and it should move fast! Until then Philadelphia truly is a city of archeology, 20 years in the past.

Nick Esposito
Backseat Conceptions