Could Beacon HS be the Temp Site for P.S. 199 or P.S. 191?

New York Press reports on CB7's Youth, Education and Libraries Committee meeting from last week.

The committee also discussed the Beacon Building Working Group, which was formed in March to deal with future plans for what will be a vacant space when the Beacon School relocates. Beacon High School will be moving from their current location on West 61st Street to a new spot on West 44th Street in the autumn of 2015. Mark Diller, who chairs the Beacon Building Working Group, addressed concerns in the community that the organization would simply serve as a rubber stamp to approve Beacon as an interim space for P.S. 199 (270 W. 70th St.) or P.S. 191 (210 W. 61st St.), both sites that Department Of Education (DOE) has shown interest in reconstructing.

Read the Full Article. 

NYC Mayoral Education Debate this Thursday

A forum on the future of public education in NYC with Democratic primary mayoral candidates. Moderated by

Diane Ravitch

Thursday May 2nd

5:30-7:00 pm

PS 29 (425 Henry Street, Brooklyn)

Funding Public Services Through Real Estate Development

Listen to a recent segment on the Brian Lehrer show.  It's doesn't talk about the school but it does address the basic issues of selling public land.

Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Regional Plan Association and Tom Angotti, director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and development, discuss the tactic of funding public housing projects, libraries, schools and post offices through developing real estate.

Our Guest Post in Vanishing New York

Vanishing New York is a fantastic blog dedicated to writing about the wonderful sites and neighborhoods in NYC that are disappearing.  Please read our guest post and look through the site.

Here's an excerpt from our post:

The Lincoln Square community has undergone major upheaval over the past few years, with the building of countless high rises, including the Trump Buildings on Riverside Boulevard, all of which have significantly changed the neighborhood from a close-knit, family-friendly community to something very different, a place unaffordable to many. These real-estate developments have also disrupted long-established school catchments and contributed to major overcrowding in schools. As a result, many children are forced to sit on waiting lists for their local public schools.

Read the Entire Post Here. 

New York Times Article on City Selling Public Land

More about the City grabbing public land for private development.  This recent New York Times article is about displacing a local community center for a luxury high-rise.

The center has been here in East Harlem, amid public-housing towers that are home to about 3,480 residents, for more than 55 years. Most of the programming comes through the Union Settlement Association: after-school, summer, tutoring, arts, college prep, job readiness, fatherhood, re-entry, teen night, mental health and life skills.
Six days a week, the center draws people from as far as Staten Island. But lately there has been fear in the neighborhood, inspired by a plan of the New York City Housing Authority to raze the building housing the center for private residential development.

Read the Full Article. 

NYTs Op-Ed Piece on Midtown East Development - Some Simularities

A piece penned by Robert A.M. Stern questioning Bloomberg's push to redevelop Midtown East without proper foresight and planning, similar to how the push is being made to develop the PS 199 site and other school sites in the city.  Some highlights:


Protecting the integrity of the area:

Are we preparing to make the same mistake again, on multiple sites? The rezoning study makes no mention of protected-view corridors. Can we guarantee that in the future the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building will not be lost in thickets of taller buildings?

Planning backwards, infrastructure should come first:

And what of our streets and subway platforms? I commute through Grand Central several times a week, and at 6:20 a.m., when I catch my train to New Haven, the terminal is already full of people. When I return at 6:30 or 7 p.m., I can hardly make my way to the stairways and escalators that lead to the Lexington Avenue subway platforms.

How will the added workers quartered in these new buildings get from their trains to their desks? The plan says that special assessments and payments in lieu of taxes will guarantee “pedestrian network improvements as development occurs.” There is nothing wrong with privately financed infrastructure improvements. But the study, if I read it correctly, gets it backward: first you put in the infrastructure, then you build the buildings. Look at the example of Grand Central, the private enterprise that spurred all this development in the first place.

Read the full piece here. 

DNAinfo.com Article about plans for the Beacon HS Building

DNAinfo.com has an article about plans for the Beacon High School building.  A new Beacon High School is being built and the DOE is working on plans for the old building.

One possibility mentioned in the article:

But the planned walk-through, which does not yet have a scheduled date, has sparked concerns that the Department of Education may be eyeing the Beacon building as a new home for P.S. 191, if the city goes forward with its proposal to tear down both P.S. 191 and P.S. 199 and replace them with privately developed high-rises.

Promises have been made concerning the process for PS 191 and PS 199 but as far as we know nothing  has been put into writing:

In response to parents' concerns about the proposed demolition of P.S. 191 and P.S. 199, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott committed at a recent town hall meeting to get more feedback from residents before moving forward with the plans. Walcott assured anxious parents that the DOE's Educational Construction Fund, the arm that proposed the two school sites for private redevelopment, was not on the verge of issuing a request for development proposals, said Shuffler, who attended the town hall."[Walcott] did state very clearly that he would allow community input before the RFPs went out," added Maack, who also attended the meeting.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130422/upper-west-side/new-committee-plans-future-of-beacon-high-school-building#ixzz2RCLtwaHE

Historic Districts Council Supports Landmarking of PS 199

See their letter of support here.

Support CDL and Help Save NYC Libraries

I've posted before about how the PS 199 issue is just one piece of a large effort by the City to sell off public land.  

An organization called Citizens Defending Libraries has been formed to fight the City on the closing and selling of libraries throughout NYC.

Library Protection Week has already brought the issue of the sell off and shrinkage of libraries to thousands of New Yorkers who knew nothing about it.  Come to the big event tomorrow at City Hall Park, where our City Comptroller John Liu will speak, 

Thursday, April 18th

12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. 

Steps of City Hall at Broadway and Chambers Streets, downtown Manhattan. 

Arrive early to get through security.

Meet the Mayoral Candidates this Thursday

Community Free Democrats &
Goddard Riverside Community Center 
presents

MAYORAL CANDIDATES DEBATE

Thursday, April 18th, 8:00 p.m.
Goddard Riverside Community Center
593 Columbus Ave @ West 88th Street

Hear from the candidates in their own words about their vision for our city and what problems they will tackle on behalf of all New Yorkers.  

Sal Albanese
Bill de Blasio
John Liu
Christine Quinn
Bill Thompson

Moderated by Dr. Ken Sherrill, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Hunter College

No RSVP required; the meeting is free and open to all!