A special thanks to our letter writers in 2023

The Israeli-Hamas war and its impact on greater Riverdale. The proliferation of illegal weed shops. A possible cricket stadium in Van Cortlandt Park. The merger of Saint Gabriel School with St. Margaret of Cortona School.

These were some of the major stories that inspired our readers to write letters in 2023.

And we have let you know how we feel. It has been a conversation that has been going on for the better part of 73 years. Since The Riverdale Press founders David and Celia Stein printed the inaugural version of this newspaper in 1950.

From that Stein power couple, to the Stein brothers of Buddy and Richie, to the fantastic Richner family that runs things today, The Press has always resisted what so many of the city’s biggest newspapers do — limit the voice of its readers. Instead, we have always embraced an open forum. As long as you’re civil and not treating this space like a Yelp review, we will go out of our way to ensure your thoughts and opinions reach the thousands of eyeballs they deserve.

A lot of that changed around 2009 when social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter became household names. Now you didn’t have to shout from your balcony, or write a letter to the editor. Social media gave you a chance for instant publication and distribution.

The problem, however, is that unless you were one of the very rare people to have your opinion go viral, your thoughts and words were limited to just your close circle of friends.

Some may have predicted social media would be the death of journalistic institutions like the Opinion page. But not so at The Riverdale Press. And that’s thanks to fantastic readers like you.

You may not always agree with what’s written here — in fact, you could even be offended. But then again, if free speech was all about protecting words we agreed with, there would be no need for the First Amendment. Instead, free speech is about supporting not only the right for people we agree with to speak, but also for those we don’t agree with.

Among the elected officials published were Mayor Eric Adams, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, Councilman Eric Dinowitz, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, U.S. Rep. RitchieTorres, and U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat.

While we have some regulars who grace our Opinion pages, we also attract new writers as well. Some are people from greater Riverdale, others are from outside the Bronx. They all share one thing in common: Delivering information and opinions to our readership on many international, national and local topics. We greatly appreciate their effort.

There were so many topics from the more than 200 letters to the editor and columns published this year by 131 authors that we would have to set aside a tremendous amount of space to list them all.

Instead, let’s use this space for something else. Let’s thank all of our writers.

We aren’t an effective newspaper unless we ensure your voice is included. Our reporters work hard to include that voice, but our Opinion pages guarantee we don’t miss a single word.

No matter how often you write, we thank you. Opinion pages are only as good as its writers. And we here at The Riverdale Press have the best.

Eric Adams, Muriel Adams, Sam Adler, Rhoda Alben-Aronson, Peter Antoine-Lavelle, Karen Argenti, Keanu Arpels-Josiah, Mike Atkin,

Edward Beller, John Benfatti, David Bliven, Peter Bergel, Sylvia Blumenfeld, Jason Brougham,

Bill Caplan, Christina Carlson, David Carlson, Ellen Chapnick, Joseph Cohen, Stuart Chen-Hayes, Stephen Cherepany, Stephanie Coggins, Elizabeth Cooke Levy

James Dalton, Lou DeHolczer, Tom DiNapoli, Eric Dinowitz, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Sue Ellen Dodell, Debbi Dolan, Shelby Doyle

Dawn Eaton, Stuart Eber, Alisa Eilenberg, Adriano Espaillat, Morgan Evers

Barbara Fasciani, Rick Feldman, Stanley Ferber, Beverly Fettman, David Fisher, Judy Fletcher,

Li San Goh, Isaac Gold, Michael Gold, Richard Goldstein, Alvin Gordon, Eric Graig, Josh Greenfield, Manny Grossman, Mel Gurtov

Jessica Haller, Lois Harr, Miriam Levine Helbok, Michael Heller,

Eli Ignatoff, Ben Jackson, Sura Jeselsohn, Marcus Johnson, Barbara Kail, Lewis Kaminski, Elise Karras, Mitch Kaufman, Sandra Kitt, Betsey Knapp, David Knapp, Robert Koehler, Virginia Krompinger

Laura Levine-Pinedo, Claire Lobel, Judy Lord, Sara Lord

Julie Marcus, Abigail Martin, Daniel McNickle, Helen Meltzer-Krim, Judith Minkoff-Grey, Isaac Michaels, Charles Moerdler, Daniel Morales, Helen Morik, Andrew Moss, Jordan Moss

James O’Connor, Vivian Oleen, Sy Oshinsky, Judy Patrick, Larry Penner,

Madeline Ritter, Gustavo Rivera,

Eytan Saenger, Alan Saks, Raya Salter, Marc Sawyer, Jennifer Scarlott, Saul Scheinbach, Roberta Seidner, Naomi Sharlin, Steve Siegelbaum. George Silos, Jeff Sklar, George Silos, Ramdat Singh, Heidi Slatkin, Andrew Smith, Pam Sporn, Bob Stein, Adam Stoler, Deborah Swiderski

Antonia Tamplin, Andrea Tekirian, Julie Tighe, Ritchie Torres, Matt Turov

Andrew Upton,

Judith Veder, Diane Vigliarolo,

Deborah Wallace, Ben Wasserburg, Philip Wasserman, Ron Wegsman, Ed Weintraub, Lawrence Wittner, Carl Wojciechowski, Paul Wolf, Peter Wolf, Dale Wolff, Jessica Altagracia Woolford, Ed Yaker, Marcia Yermen, Barry Ziman