Letters to the Editor

Thank You for the OTTY Awards The OTTYs are a wonderful idea to encourage and recognize New Yorkers who take pride in what they do, how they work and their achievements, whether paid for or volunteered. And we can express our pride in them by supporting their names for OTTY awards. Each and every year of the 29 years since I co-founded and have led the East 79 Street Neighborhood Association, I have met and admired a number of people whom I felt proud to nominate for an OTTY; and this year is no exception. I send names for each OTTY category of people who stand out from their colleagues in the way they think, relate, and demonstrate that they truly care about the business or residential community in which they participate. These are people who work the extra mile, take that extra challenge, do that unexpected, generous and often anonymous action that benefits many others. So it is important at a time when the media is overwhelmed with reporting of daily, horrific news, that there be an OTTYs opportunity to recognize and publicize positive, inspirational efforts and behavior. I thank Our Town for continuing its OTTY Awards each year.

- Betty Cooper Wallerstein

Essential Crime Coverage

 I follow crime news on the Upper East Side in both Our Town and DNAInfo.com, which is not easy to do because it is only sporadically covered. I was intrigued by your article, "76 Percent of Stop and Frisks are Minorities in 19th Precinct" (OT, February 14th, 2013) .As a member of the 19th Precinct Community Council and the East 79th Street Neighborhood Association, I support the NYPD's Stop, Question and Frisk Policy because it deters crime and saves lives. Without this policy the crime rate in the city would sky rocket. Who wants crime to go up? Nobody! Stop, Question and Frisk is based upon the descriptions of perpetrators provided by crime victims. It is a tragedy that such a marked percentage of persons stopped by the NYPD are people of color. The Upper East Side is not necessarily safe for women: iPhone theft, purse snatchings, sexual violence, burglaries, auto larcenies, and cyber crime are fairly commonplace here. We often hear that crime is down but I think that crime information is not fully reported to the public (dare I say suppressed by the Bloomberg administration) because of an economic fear that newcomers and tourists to the city would stay away from New York.

Whatever the case, there should be more, not less, crime information published in Our Town and on the six o'clock news. By doing so, the community can develop defensive strategies on how to avoid becoming a crime statistic.

-Andrea K. Zimmermann