Jehovah’s Witnesses have been criticized by community leaders for not fixing up parks in Dumbo, Brooklyn, as promised.
New York Times article Dec 31 2015
by Gayle 33 Replies latest jw friends
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Gayle
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blondie
Yes, I just read that Gayle. There was a small triangle across from 25 Columbia, nice grass etc. So the WTS made promises they did not keep? What a surprise! -
ToesUp
What a great witness to the community. lol
"The parks controversy seems to have exposed a long-simmering resentment of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower, for planning to leave a city that has enriched the religious group exponentially, community leaders say, yet to which it has given little in return."
'Giving little in return." We on this forum can back that statement up. The WT gives nothing, it only takes. Ask all the Bethelites who are being "sent into the field."
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lrkr
I think they take care of the little patch of grass. This is the abandoned piers behind Columbia Heights. Interesting that they did nothing. If they thought they did nothing before- just wait! -
Beth Sarim
They don't take care of green spaces/parks after all the tax free breaks they get. Hypocritcal. -
DesirousOfChange
They are not accustomed to spending money for the betterment of others.
If you "follow the money" at WT, it all moves only ONE-WAY -- into their coffers. (At least until some attorney gets a big settlement or award.)
Doc
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Coded Logic
They haven't done anything for ten years after promising to build a park for rezoning rights?
What's wrong with these guys? The community has every right to be outraged.
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The Marvster
I dread to think what the 'earth-wide' paradise is going to look like....
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ToesUp
"In any event, with those volunteers busy in Warwick, the group was looking into making a financial contribution to finish the project, Mr. Devine, the spokesman, said. “We realized that we were stretched,” he said."
Interesting comment by Mr. Devine. Are they "stretched" financially or did he mean "stretched" for volunteers to do the job, since they are busy at Warwick? Maybe both?
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talesin
“They are the biggest land tycoons in my neighborhood,” Doreen Gallo, the executive director of the Dumbo Neighborhood Alliance, said. “They got to flip commercial manufacturing land for residential developments and now they are flipping it again and leaving.”
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Nevertheless, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses pack up to move to Warwick, N.Y., some neighborhood advocates, like Tucker Reed, the president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, are demanding they do more than just spruce up the park. Mr. Reed said they should give the city a percentage of whatever their real estate reaps. “These sales windfalls — and resulting development — make clear that it’s time for the Witnesses to give something back to the neighborhood that fostered their growth and bankrolled their future,” Mr. Reed wrote in an opinion piece in Crain’s New York.[bold is mine]
"It's in the New York ***king Times!"