Commentary
PAYING TOO MUCH
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
On Tuesday the town of Tisbury voted to give the Island Housing Trust, a private, nonprofit land development company, $160,000 to help pay expenses related to the Lambert’s Cove Road affordable housing project. This vote upsets my stomach.
How can affordable housing upset anyone’s stomach? Well, it’s all in the details.
Editor’s Note: The following piece by Polly Woollcott Murphy was published in the Gazette on Dec. 2, 1983. Mrs. Murphy, who began writing for the Gazette in 1940 at the age of 17, died on Nov. 15 at the age of 86.
On Nov. 15, 1969, a million peo ple, give or take a few hundred thousand, marched on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam. It was my first major demonstration. You never forget your first.
Living and raising a family on Martha’s Vineyard for the last 11 years has provided me with a broad knowledge of local charitable organizations, each striving to protect what is special about our Island community. Despite the daunting number of nonprofit organizations, there is an impressive level of respect and support shared among these groups. I’m sure most would agree that the charitable work of this Island is impressive.
A Last Relic
From Gazette editions of November, 1959:
T he rich are different from you and me,” Scott Fitzgerald once said to Ernest Hemingway. “Yes,” Ernest replied, “they have more money.”
Scott was preternaturally conditioned to see rich people through a veil of romance. Hemingway viewed them simply as members of the bourgeoisie (not artists, as he was) if of the haute variety.