Updated: April 11, 2013 4:23PM

Kudos to Mark Brown for his latest column, on Thursday, regarding the gut rehab of the Abbott Hotel on Belmont. Once again, we are all painfully made aware of the problems facing the poor and elderly in Chicago by unscrupulous real estate developers.

The total disregard for humanity in this particular situation is not acceptable to the decent citizens of Chicago. Please, Mr. Brown, follow up on this and every other story that you have written about the plight of the poor people and the homeless in Chicago.

Chicago is the City of Big Shoulders, and we are better than this — we need to find a solution. Thank you for bringing the problem to everyone’s attention.

Rosemary Cannon,

West Elsdon

Public deserves say on sculptures

Who is responsible for all the so-called artistic sculptures littering the park all down Lake Shore Drive? A few of the pieces are actually nice, but that is not the point: They don’t belong in the park. The Park District has forgotten that there is a beauty in space itself. There is nothing more attractive than a cut lawn with a scattering of well-placed bushes and trees. These rusting hulks are offensive. Someone in the park administration has forgotten the adage that sometimes ‘less is best.’ I beg the Chicago Park District to re-examine its thinking and get back to nature.

In addition, the placement of these “sculptures” is too important an issue to be left to a handful of park administrators. These objects might be with Chicago for a hundred years. It would be just to have a referendum and let the citizens of Chicago decide.

James O’Rourke

Leave proper roles to proper authorities

As a supporter of full, equal rights for same-sex couples, I sense we may have gotten a “civil right” confused with a “religious rite”: Let the government control civil unions and religions control marriage.

The government should offer only civil unions, a legal union with responsibilities and privileges for any pair of adults — gay or straight. If couples also want a moral union called marriage, they should turn to a religious group of their choice.

This is an honest separation of church and state.

Pamela Ames,

Hyde Park

Uptown

Con game with charter schools

How do you open up new charter schools (giving them additional resources), drain the student population from the neighborhood schools and then declare the neighborhood schools “underutilized?” Reminds me of the sleight of hand of many scammers: “Now you see it, now you don’t.”

Lydia Thomas,

Morgan Park

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