Bronx Destruction

* Robert Scheer (Commentary, Dec. 19) explains the “burnt-out wreckage of the Bronx” as the “direct consequence of government funding cutbacks in programs for the poor.” I grew up in New York, specifically Coney Island, while the Bronx and other sections of New York were burning, and I can tell you that the hellish condition of large swaths of New York was due to the residents of these areas who destroyed and looted their own neighborhoods.

The Bronx was destroyed despite massive infusions of taxpayer money, but Scheer typically leaves nothing to personal responsibility and everything to government funding and intervention.

ELAINE ADLER GOODFRIEND

Woodland Hills