Recently, under a pseudonym (since the paper doesn’t accept letters from contributors, and I’m a regular columnist there), I sent the following missive to the New York Observer:
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Editor
The New York Observer
54 E. 64th Street
New York, NY 10021
Dear Sir:
In “Hey! Do You Know Me? I’m Governor Pataki . . . ,” your front-page story on who the public credits for introducing the Metrocard (August 4, 1997), Joe Conason refers to Staten Island as “the city’s smallest and remotest borough.”
By no stretch of the imagination can Staten Island’s size be so described. Staten Island measures in at approximately 68 square miles, making it almost three times as large as Manhattan. One assumes, charitably, that your young reporter and your even younger fact-checkers simply do not know the not-insignificant difference between “smallest” and “least populous.” Perhaps you will instruct them on this matter.
Sincerely,
/s/Douglass Calland
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To my considerable surprise, they ran it, in the issue datelined August 25-September 1 (Vol. 11, no. 33) — but couldn’t resist yet another jab at the Island, headlining it “Jumbo Shrimp.”
“Remotest,” of course, cannot be denied. Staten Island is physically closer to New Jersey than to any part of New York City. Indeed, New Jersey once laid claim to it; the dispute was (according to one legend) settled by a boat race around the Island, won by New York ― to the great disappointment of many Islanders, then as now, who feel more allegiance to the Garden State than to the Empire State.
We’ve just celebrated the centennial of the Island’s annexation; along with the other boroughs, it became part of “greater New York” (and, at the same time, enabled New York to call itself “greater”) on January 1, 1898. It is the only borough with a serious secessionist faction, indicating that, for more than a few, “remote” constitutes a state of mind as well as a geographical fact.
And, while we’re at it, why not add “highest” to the list of Island characteristics? Staten Island is the highest point on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Gives you paws, eh?
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