COMMENTARY: Why New York City should save Taras Shevchenko Place (11/18/01)

COMMENTARY: Why New York City should save Taras Shevchenko Place

Below is the text of remarks by Jaroslaw Kurowyckyj, chairman of the Taras Shevchenko Preservation Committee, delivered on October 31 at the scoping meeting focusing on The Cooper Union's development plans in the East Village of New York City. (At that meeting, The Cooper Union removed the street's demapping from its development proposal.)

I am Jaroslaw Kurowyckyj, a 52-year resident of the East Village and retired owner of a family-owned business which has been in the East Village for 46 years. My son runs the business now. Our business and my residence are two blocks from The Cooper Union. I represent the whole community, and the Ukrainian community in particular. Our community is asking you to look closely at the documents submitted to you by The Cooper Union to demap Taras Shevchenko Place, named in honor of the bard of Ukraine, because we do not see any benefits of this proposal to the community.

In the past weeks the citizens of the City of New York have had to reflect on the meaning of symbols. We have appreciated how much the Twin Towers meant not only as a symbol of New York but, now that they are gone, as a symbol of the concept of a free and viable city. Photographs of the towers flood the Internet and are sold on the street, and there are those who send postcards of the Towers to friends throughout the world, striving to confirm their continued, if purely spiritual, existence.

I mention this to you because for many years the little stretch of street known as Taras Shevchenko Place was as meaningful to the Ukrainian American citizens of this city, even more so to the Ukrainian Americans throughout the United States.

It was symbolic in the most fundamental way of the existence of Ukraine, of a people and their desire for their own free existence in a world that then denied it, of a Ukraine that existed solely in the minds and hearts of people who were denied the right of self-rule and self-determination.

Ukraine has been an independent nation for 10 years now, and perhaps you would say: Why should it be important to anyone that Taras Shevchenko Place continue to exist?

I say to you it should continue to exist because the people of the City of New York petitioned for it to exist, and they, as well as their fellow citizens, value the memory of that struggle, the struggle to create Taras Shevchenko Place, as well as the struggle to create a free Ukraine. It should continue to exist because the labor involved in convincing the city of the importance of this street to the community that is centered here was lengthy and because the things that a community creates should not disappear because of the desires of a currently more powerful and influential group.

If you were to ask me about the meaning and importance of this street and why it should be retained, I would respond by saying that, just as the statue of the founder of The Cooper Union stands south of the Foundation Building and symbolizes the roots of that school in our community, this street represents the roots of the Ukrainian community in this city that reach back well over 100 years.

These are the roots of a community that might not have been particularly verbal or wealthy, but one that helped to build this city in many ways, a community that came here seeking freedom, and which worked by the sweat of its brow not only to build this city, but also to help bring freedom to its homeland.

The Ukrainians who came here formed a parish, the Ukrainian Catholic Parish of St. George, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in three years. This is only one of two Byzantine-style churches in the City of New York. The community sacrificed to build a larger edifice to accommodate a community that continues to grow and see this as the center of its religious and cultural life, with various social and educational institutions located within a small radius around the church.

It is highly symbolic to me personally, that St. George is the patron saint of soldiers, that those who came here struggled, not necessarily militarily but in every other possible way to ensure that their relatives could achieve freedom and self-rule. Equally important, the Ukrainians who came here fought for this country so that we could live here in the wonderful melange that is New York - where people speaking different languages with origins in a different culture live side by side and try to learn about each other while respecting their own and others' values.

Removing this street would serve as a mark of disrespect for the people who poured their sweat and tears into New York.

It would serve as a mark of disrespect for the continuing efforts of their children and grandchildren.

We would like you to analyze the benefit to be gained by the community in demapping Taras Shevchenko Place. In our eyes, the only benefit would be to those who seek to destroy a community forged for over a hundred years on the streets into which it became integrated as a part of the glory that is New York.

Therefore, I respectfully ask that you examine carefully any proposal to demap or restrict in any way the street known as Taras Shevchenko Place.

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