The form letters that the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation asks you to send to various officials all contain the same bullshit phrase: “Please protect the character of our neighborhood…”

Yes, that’s right. Some people believe that the character of Greenwich Village is intimately bound up with a curb cut leading to a filthy concrete garage entrance, an unadorned cast iron fence keeping the public off of a pointless lawn, and a car-free street that manages to be devoid of pedestrian activity. Oh, Scott Stringer, save this vulnerable piece of neighborhood character!