SEINFELD'S PRIDE

Tuesday March 30, 1999 12:00 AM EST

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With pen in hand (and tongue in cheek), Jerry Seinfeld wrote The New York Times to defend Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he lives and where his TV show was set. In the letter published Sunday, Jerry took to task a March 21 Times story that said the neighborhood was no longer a happening place. Countered Seinfeld: "The article said that since the Upper West Side lost Charivari (an expensive clothing retailer) and the China Club (a night spot), it's equivalent to 'a mall in Iowa.' It's true. Now, to get ripped off I have to traipse all the way over to Madison Avenue, and to get crunched into a mass of pretentious drunken losers, sometimes I don't know where to go." Still, he defiantly declared that Upper West Siders, "stinking from smoked salmon and covered in grass stains from playing in the park, are not going away."