Sometimes in the middle of an argument, Groucho Marx would blurt, "Who do you believe? Me, or your own eyes?"

There is a lot of Groucho Marx in the collection of long letters that are now appearing in the Manhasset Press decrying the prospect of an apartment building for senior housing on current Christ Church property on Northern Boulevard.

Their scare tactics and fanciful arguments sound familiar indeed to anyone who has followed the predictable path of opposition to new projects in Manhasset.

It doesn't take too long a memory to recall the uproar at the prospect of a TGI Fridays moving into a restaurant location long occupied by the lace-doily restaurant, Lorraine Murphy's. Opponents warned we would have sidewalk carousing, bar fights, honking car horns, and blaring music--all decidedly out of character with Manhasset.

More recently, a campaign of opposition long delayed the construction of a King Kullen supermarket in the commercial area on the other side of Northern Boulevard. This was at a time when the number of supermarkets in Manhasset diminished from six when we settled there in 1971 ("Grandma, what's a Bohack?") to one basement Whole Foods. The highly organized and articulate opponents said the new store would create a nightmare for neighbors with the smell of rotting food, the sight of scattering rodents, the din of banging cans and backing trucks.

So what do your own eyes and ears now tell you? None of these terrible predictions came true! We have a restaurant that is a good neighbor in Manhasset, and a model supermarket that goes a long way in serving community residents at a time when our need is for wide-aisled supermarkets, not wild-eyed nimbyists.

The critical need for senior housing in this community has been thoroughly studied and documented. Appallingly, the vocal opposition is fanciful, superficial, and self-serving.

Read the letters, and you will find many of the writers are out of touch with how things really work. Take the argument that if a senior couple or single widow moved out of their Manhasset home into a senior apartment in the proposed building, a family with three children would replace them and thus create a new burden for the school system. For the project to have this long-term impact, two conditions would have to prevail: the elderly residents would otherwise remain in their old houses forever, and a new family moving in would have three children in the schools forever.

That argument ignores the natural and ongoing flow of residents through the community. Housing is always turning over, incoming children in due time graduate, and their parents spend prolonged periods in empty nests.

Here is a real life example. When I moved with my family to Manhasset in 1971 we put two children in the Manhasset schools. Two elderly widows lived alone in big houses on either side of us. In 10 years, both of our children had graduated from Manhasset High School; nevertheless, we stayed in the house and paid school taxes for another 17 years before moving into a North Hills condominium. Meanwhile, the two elderly widows died and new families with school-age children bought the houses and moved in.

The reality is that this is how things work, even without the proposed senior housing. Empty nests turn over, and new sets of children come to live in them. In the cases mentioned, the widows, both original Munsey Park residents, would undoubtedly have been better cared for, happier, and more socially vital if at some point they finally could have enjoyed a more supportive living situation in their long-time home community.

It is time to put fanciful opposition aside and expedite the approval process so when the project is complete, you can confront the actuality and see the benefits with your own eyes.

John B. Haney