Thursday, March 19, 2009

Which site seems more logical to you?

According to the School Construction Authority, the current high school proposed for Queens can be sited in one of two locations: 55-02 Broadway in Woodside, or 54-44 74th Street in Maspeth. Since the Department of Education has stated that its current policy is to give access to its high schools to children throughout the entire city, then logic dictates that the schools should be near subways or at least major public transit transfer points. Which of these two sites has better transportation access?


74th Street: Q58 & Q59 buses a block away, Q45 about 4 blocks away. No subway.

Broadway: Q66 and Q18 buses within one block, Q104 about 5 blocks away, R & V trains at the corner.

Number of households in Woodside with children: 10,897
Number of households in Jackson Heights with children: 7,970

Number of households in Maspeth with children: 4,211
Number of households in Middle Village with children: 3,507

The evidence is pretty clear that not only does the Woodside site make the most sense geographically, but there is also more of a need for it in that community. And Maspeth kids are just a short bus ride away from it. Middle Village kids are just a short bus ride away from the new high school on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills which is already under construction.

Makes you wonder why the 74th Street site is even under consideration.

69 comments:

georgetheatheist said...

There's already a high school near the Woodside site: Bryant HS

(BTW Alma Mater of Joel Klein.)

Queens Crapper said...

Actually, it's more than 2 miles away from Bryant.

Anonymous said...

I always believed sites for High Schools were chosen based on free local street parking for teachers and staff.

Screw the students. Back in the day, when I went to school. I had to walk 10 miles to school in snow, uphill, both ways, every day.

Anonymous said...

Maspeth is more likely to have heavy industrial pollution too given the history of the area.

Trilby said...

So Crappy, you want to send Maspeth kids over to the school in my FH backyard? (Where there is also no immediate subway access, BTW.) I mean, nothing against those kids, but I live in FH but my kids are zoned for Hillside because FHHS is over-crowded. I thought the new school towering over my humble abode was supposed to ease over-crowding in MY immediate vicinity. Silly me!

As for free local street parking around here, very limited. Can't wait to see that outcome of THAT problem.

Trilby said...

'Scuse me, I mean you are sending Middle Village students here to the new school on Metro. Which, BTW, is also a strange site for a school. The windows on one side are about 5 feet from an active train line. The front of the building is about 10 feet from a DOT yard, and the whole shebang is about half a mile set back from Metro. Again, very little provision for on-site teacher parking. Why is it that teachers never commute by public transportation like most of the rest of us??? The Q23 from the subway will soon be overwhelmed... I can't even imagine. Thousands of kids pouring into the nabe daily, including 200 special ed. Should be fun!

Queens Crapper said...

There aren't too many kids from Middle Village who will be going to a public high school, just based on the stats and the fact that many in the neighborhood prefer to give their kids a Catholic education. But those who do should be zoned for the new FH school because MV is on the other side of the cemetery from the high school, within 1/4 of a mile.

Anonymous said...

You know you guys bring up a good point. We are supposed to be encouraging city employees to take the train and taking their placards away from them. So why are we building high schools in locations that they will basically be forced to drive to?

Anonymous said...

And to the whiners who can't bear the thought that your kid might actually have to board a bus or train to get to school: at 14 or 15 years of age it's time to cut the apron strings already. You're messing up your kids' heads with your smothering. They are given free MetroCards to get them to school, so I don't understand the protestation.

Anonymous said...

well thank community five for the headache we will soon have to deal with. we have traffic issues now on grand avenue. and to all the parents who calls us a bunch of crybabies here in maspeth, well i don't want to hear you cry when your children are harrassed or feed drugs by high school students your causing to come into our neighborhood. 110 precent admits they have gang problems over in corona, so i don't care anymore about you folks. and when the shit hits the ceiling i'll be the one laughing.

Anonymous said...

SCA BETTER HAVE PARKING GARGAGE IN THEIR PLANS FOR THIS HIGH SCHOOL OR COMMUNITY BOARD SHOULD REJECT IT. COMMUNITY FIVE KNOWS THE MANY COMPLAINTS FROM OUR COMMUNITY ABOUT THE PARKING AND TEACHERS. AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW THE MTA IS GOING TO HANDLE THE LARGE AMOUNTS OF STUDENTS COMING INTO MASPETH. WE ONLY HAVE TWO BUS LINES COMING INTO THIS AREA. OH CRAP THE 59 GOES TO BKLYN. SO DOES THAT MEAN WILL HAVE BKLYN KIDS TOO. THANKS COMMUNITY FOR FXXKING UP OUR TOWN. OH AND THE QUEENS LEDGER WALTER SUPPORTED THE SCHOOL!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

hey i'm moving, does any of the folks who faught for this school want to buy my house? i guess not since you can't afford private schooling and have no respect for the elderly here that pay the school tax to allow your children to go to public schools. if your not willing to work for your children i doubt very much you can get a mortgage.

Anonymous said...

maspeth residents flood the office of liz crowley and community five with complaints that you don't want a high school over here in maspeth!!! i would be calling every day, make their lives a living hell like they want to do to us. and if walter backs the school DON'T BUY THE QUEENS LEDGER........

Anonymous said...

when p.s 58 was in the works claire shulman came in and took the site, she is the one who started this in our community with sca pulling the domain crap. community five should respect our concerns and say NO to the school. we have enough children coming into our community and a 1000 more is not going to work with the mta buses. what the hell are they thinking at the board??? and to the parents who don't respect our elderly, well they pay school tax for the schools, not all are retired and exempt. respect starts at home and if this is how you speak to them at the meetings,why would i think your children. sca has been given alternative sites, which is closer to trains and bus lines, which would not affect any small town. BOARD WAKE UP AND VOTE NO......

georgetheatheist said...

This Woodside proposal is on 55th Street; Bryant is on 49th Street. Two miles?

Queens Crapper said...

Bryant High School is listed as being at 48-10 31st Avenue, Long Island City. That's 2 miles away.

Anonymous said...

"DON'T BUY THE QUEENS LEDGER"

Absolutely, I agree. You can't call it a newspaper, it's a bad joke. Good for nothing except picking up dog poop.

Anonymous said...

thanks commmunity five and walter don't call it maspeth anymore call it ghetto town........ i guess you want our small town to look more like myrtle avenue, thanks so much!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Bryant High School is listed as being at 48-10 31st Avenue, Long Island City. That's 2 miles away.

Crappy, you should be ashamed!

For someone who speaks with such authority on all things Queens, you need to pay better attention to the difference between 31st AVENUE (the school address) and 31st PLACE (what you mapped). ALSO, don't trust Google to be the authority on where everything is located. With just a little more effort, and a look at the NYC schools website, you would realize this is just where georgie says it is. Not far at all from the Woodside location.

http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/
30/Q445/AboutUs/MapsAndDirections/
default.htm

Anonymous said...

Which brings me to my next suggestion.

Perhaps we shouldn't be looking only at raw demographic numbers, but instead at how many children are not already served by a school in the neighborhood.

Queens Crapper said...

Sorry, I Googled Bryant High School and that was the address and location it gave me. Bad Google.

Having said that, I don't understand why it's bad to have high schools too close to each other, but having 3 schools within a 4 block radius is perfectly acceptable.

And you don't seem to understand that the school is going to be a themed school and open to all City residents and therefore needs to be as transit accessible as possible.

Anonymous said...

Why does a school have to be "in the neighborhood"? I thought that's what we have bus passes for.

Anonymous said...

Of course we should be looking at raw demographic numbers. There are more public school kids in Woodside and Jackson Heights than in Maspeth and Middle Village combined.

Anonymous said...

Build the school where the most kids come from. The kids are coming from Elmhurst, Corona, Woodside and Jackson Heights. Maspeth and Middle Village have a fraction of that. If you ease the overcrowding at schools like Bryant, Cleveland, Newtown, it frees up the space for our kids to go there. They should build an annex to Cleveland at the Rite Aid site on Metro, a school behind the Queens Center Mall and another at the mentioned Woodside location.

Anonymous said...

Cleveland would not be nearly as overcrowded if there were no kids from Brooklyn in it. Why can't we limit enrollment to 1 borough if not the immediate vicinity?

Anonymous said...

And you don't seem to understand that the school is going to be a themed school and open to all City residents and therefore needs to be as transit accessible as possible.

If transit access is your argument, fine. That's a good angle.

In that case, it seems disingenuous to argue based on the "number of households with children," which says nothing about underserved students and doesn't speak to transit.

Anonymous said...

r was me.
Clumsy fingers published too early.

Anonymous said...

Not sure I understand your "underserved" argument. Every child in NYC is guaranteed an education. Most children are not within walking distance of a public high school. Those who are may choose to attend a different one.

The entire point is that if this was for the "underserved" in Maspeth/Middle Village then it would not need to be nearly as large as it is proposed to be. But that's moot because they already have stated that the school will be open to all which means making a bad transit situation even worse.

Anonymous said...

nope it's not going to happen according to walter its a done deal. maspeth is getting a high school and the people of maspeth are nothing. flood and complain to community five and liz crowley's office. call up marge and helen and tell them your complaints too. mta will not be able to handle the amount of children and teachers coming into this community period. mta is looking to cut, hello doesn't anyone out there get it??? qns will be the first to be hit the hardest.

Unknown said...

"So why are we building high schools in locations that they will basically be forced to drive to?"

Teachers are not FORCED to drive the FH any more than I would be forced to drive from FH to my work-- which I would never do.

And why are placards an issue? Theoretically, anyone can park on my block all day long, and some do, but it is harder and harder to find a spot. Many residents park on the street instead of off-street because otherwise you get blocked in. Because there really isn't enough room between curb cuts.

Anyway, I would love to see some coverage here of the gigantic high school (actually 4 schools) going up in my backyard. I'm a little scared about it.

Anonymous said...

The underserved students are the ones in already built overcrowded public schools which are in Woodside, Elmhurst and Ridgewood. They should find space near the existing schools because most of the kids attending public high school are from Corona, Elmhurst, Ridgewood, Jackson Heights and Woodside.

Queens Crapper said...

Yeah and what's with the "4 schools in one" bullshit? Do they not think we understand that it's still just one big high school?

Anonymous said...

It's obvious that the Woodside location is more logical, which is why the SCA and Crowley were hiding that document listing the alternate sites. Crowley wants the high school in Maspeth where she claims to have grown up (another big lie). She had the staff of PS58 work on her campaign and she doesn't want to piss them off.

Anonymous said...

Walter Sanchez, chairman of CB 5’s Land Use Committee, suggested adding a request for teacher parking, which is not included by design at any of the city’s public schools.

“You’re proposing that they do things they can’t and won’t do,” he said. “You might as well include something about the parking.”


What an asshole. Why not just vote no?

Anonymous said...

As other board members began to ask about whether the school could be relocated to one of the alternate sites on a DOE list Holden photographed at the recent eminent domain hearing, Lydon Sleeper, Crowley’s chief of staff, interjected.

“You don’t have another shot at this,” he said. “Yes, there’s a list of other sites. I do not think that it is reasonable to expect or consider that this $80 million investment in the community will be moved to another location in a week.”


There you go, folks. Crowley wants the school there. Doesn't matter what WE want. Now we know why the CB did what it did.

Anonymous said...

Here's the article, BTW:

CB 5 votes for school in Maspeth

Anonymous said...

wow i have the problems with my driveway over here on mazeau street. the teachers park right up to the cutout and then other people park in the handicap cross walk (that we were forced into getting) and DOT won't put up a sign, which community board knows about, so i have a problem getting my truck out all the time. hmmm yeah thanks community board now it will be even harder. WE DON'T WANT OR NEED A SCHOOL, VOTE "NO"

Anonymous said...

LMAO NOTICE WALTER IN THE PICTURE!!!!! HE VOTED YES DON'T BUY THE QUEENS LEDGER

Anonymous said...

wow look at the article and i have to say the board has a bunch of a holes on it. i thought when you get active on the board was to protect the community and the people of the area from over developments and safety i would think would be on the top of the list. maspeth has no police and it's real tiring going to meetings and hearing there's no crime, that it's all in ridgewood, oh boy that means they would be coming here to go to school. thanks liz and the board. put a police station instead to cover maspeth, middle village and elmhurst on this side of the blvd. thank you

Anonymous said...

"Walter Sanchez, chairman of CB 5’s Land Use Committee, suggested adding a request for teacher parking, which is not included by design at any of the city’s public schools.

“You’re proposing that they do things they can’t and won’t do,” he said. “You might as well include something about the parking.”

What an asshole. Why not just vote no?"

He's much more than an asshole.

Search ACRIS (NYC Dept of Finance) type in Walter Sanchez under individual.

After you search that, under business, type in Midnight Communications. Stay tuned boys and girls. The chickens are coming home to roost.

http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/PName

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention that the owner of Restaurant Depot doesn't want to sell the property to the Board of Ed. The alternate site might have a more willing seller.

Anonymous said...

There's a reason why Walter Sanchez is known as Walter "Lien On Me" Sanchez. This guy thinks he's a powerhouse in this town, yet he owes everybody. I know he doesn't always pay his employees and get's young students to work for him and stiffs them. By the way, Walter's kids all go to private school. He doesn't care about a public school in the area. It won't affect him, because he lives at the other end of Maspeth. Vote him off the community board. He doesn't care about the community or his readers. He's barely literate. Just read his Queens Ledger. Better yet, DON'T READ IT. If you have a subscription -- CANCEL IT. Run this creep out of town.

Anonymous said...

Where is Marge Markey? What is her stand on this high school? Is she for it or against it? Haven't seen her since she was elected. Hey Marge, it's time to earn your salary fight for this neighborhood. Do you live here? Do you care? When are you going to step up and help us? It would comfort us greatly if you would take a stand on this issue.

Anonymous said...

wow, just looked up walter and the liens on him from the federal government is WHAT!!! why is he still doing business and on the board? why hasn't the federal government arrested him?? and yes i know for a fact his children go to private schools and your right he doesn't care about maspeth and especially this end since he didn't get to build a mall on the parks site. he wanted a ymca and a mall, so you can screw more people out of pay. community board get rid of this man already. he should not be allowed to do any service with federal liens on him, hey do you got more names for us??

georgetheatheist said...

If you look at the bottom map that's posted, Bryant HS is where the second "W" is in the name Newtown Road.

Also the proposed Woodside site is a short block from one of the busiest intersections in all of Queens - Broadway and Northern Blvd. There are accidents galore there. I personally watched a car hit a guy waiting out in the street for the bus. He somersaulted - somersaulted - out in front of the car and landed on his head. Now picture hundreds and hundreds of wild, unruly kids trying to navigate this intersection.

Geographically, I don't believe the Woodside site will happen.

Anonymous said...

grew up in astoria/woodside area and newtown road is off bway and 48 street. northern and 55 street is not next to it. bryant hs starts on 48st and 31 ave next to woodside projects and the school yard is where newtown road starts, 48 street. 55 street and northern is not next to this school, but yet not far. children have traveled down to worst intersections then this and many travel to nyc.. so please george.

Anonymous said...

School safety and the NYPD would take care of the intersection where the kids would have to cross.

Anonymous said...

Glad Liz only gets a short term before the next election. She has to go.

Anonymous said...

community five : 718-471-5799 speak with gary giordano or vincent arcuri, jr.

liz crowley : 718-366-3900 her address is finally: 64-77 dry harbor road middle village!!

call and complain everyone

Anonymous said...

Why is the SCA so hell-bent on the Maspeth property? The alternative site would definitely make more sense and would be more accessible for the students, ie.transportation. Is someone getting a payoff in return for the Maspeth property? Someone's palm stands be greased. The question is who (politican or agency head) will benefit by having this High School built in Maspeth? It certainly isn't the community. Seems like the community has no sayin this decision. What promises were made and to whom? This needs a thorough investigation before anything moves forward. The owners of Restaurant Depot don't want to sell the property to the SCA. The SCA wants to take the property by eminent domain. It seems that someone or some group is taking an awful lot of time and trouble to make this Maspeth School happen! WHY? WHY? WHY?

Anonymous said...

RE Cutting the Apron Strings at 14-15:

I'd LOVE to, and do as best as I can, but NYC has basically said that LEGALLY, you are not allowed to leave a child alone until they are 18 - if something happens before that, Child Protective Services will be all over your ass.

So, off you send your child to School, you put them on the bus, they trip, get hurt a block from school, you are a negligent parent! Yes, I checked the offical rules. I wanted to be able to leave my almost 13 YO daughter at home for 20 minutes while picking up my son. Technically I'm not allowed to!

Anonymous said...

There is a pattern of shitting on Maspeth over the past year or so:

1) Promising downzoning and not delivering
2) Promising the truck bypass and not delivering
3) Allowing a cell tower on a residential property
4) Approving a building to be built more than twice as tall as permitted
5) Building PS58 and not providing pull offs for buses and parents' cars or parking for the teachers.
5) And now, a public high school that most in the community recognize will do more harm than good.

Someone wants the people who live a peaceful existence here to leave.

Anonymous said...

"So, off you send your child to School, you put them on the bus, they trip, get hurt a block from school, you are a negligent parent! Yes, I checked the offical rules."

No you didn't. They give bus passes out to high school students. They don't give them out so mommy can drive them to school.

Anonymous said...

Sounds to me that someone has a hard on for Maspeth and wants the town to cease to exist as we know it. Why is this? Maspeth has been shit on too many times! Why this neighborhood? Why don't they build schools where the children are? How many kids are bused to IS73? Why can't they condemn property in Corona or East Elmhurst? Why do they want to destroy solid communities? Anybody have any answers?

Anonymous said...

Tweeding. Maspeth folks read, write letters and don't always vote the right way. So they need to do something so we'll go away. This is how they accomplish that.

Elizabeth Crowley should be tarred and feathered for participating in this. And so should her cousin who made a deal with Mattone for a Home Depot at the Gas Tanks site. When the community caught on, the real fight began. It's not like the tweeders wanted a park there.

Anonymous said...

What promises did Community Board 5 get from Helen Marshall to vote yes on this High School? Doesn't the Borough President appoint community board members? Were they promised tenure? Were they promised discretionary funding for pet projects? I know Crowley had to vote yes because the PTA at PS58 helped her with her City Council campaign.

Anonymous said...

There are UFT people who LIVE in Maspeth that don't want the school there! People that worked on her campaign!

Anonymous said...

On why two parcels of land are not equal:

"I saw my chances and took 'em."

http://www.panarchy.org/plunkitt/graft.1905.html

Anonymous said...

Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to layout a new school at a certain place. I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.
Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.

Or supposin' it's a new bridge they're goin' to build. I get tipped off and I buy as much property as I can that has to be taken for approaches. I sell at my own price later on and drop some more money in the bank.

Wouldn't you?

It's just like lookin' ahead in Wall Street or in the coffee or cotton market. It's honest graft, and I'm lookin' for it every day in the year. I will tell you frankly that I've got a good lot of it, too.

I'll tell you of one case. They were goin' to fix up a big park, no matter where. I got on to it, and went lookin' about for land in that neighborhood. I could get nothin' at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted on. They couldn't make the park complete without Plunkitt's swamp, and they had to pay a good price for it.

Anything dishonest in that?

Anonymous said...

What about Saint Savior's? Isn't that still available? And accessible by transit too?

Anonymous said...

Nope, not available. Not on SCA's list of alternate sites.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said:
"Build the school where the most kids come from. The kids are coming from Elmhurst, Corona, Woodside and Jackson Heights. Maspeth and Middle Village have a fraction of that. If you ease the overcrowding at schools like Bryant, Cleveland, Newtown, it frees up the space for our kids to go there."

One rapid reply to that will be that there is no room to build a school there.

Well. Then use eminent domain to take all the property needed.

They plan to use it in Maspeth. They can use it elsewhere. Take private homes, if that's where the necessary land is. Residential property is cheaper than commercial property anyway.

Anonymous said...

Makes me sick, to the ones who claim that they are part of UFT and liz crowley's champain that don't want the school, well come out and support your neighborhood. Tell city council you don't want the school, how it's going to impact your community and quality of life. how having over 1000 more students coming in will disrupt transit for ridgewood, glendale and maspeth who need to take the 58,59 bus to get to the connecting buses and trains on queens blvd.

Anonymous said...

I hope the lady who says you cannot leave your children alone until they are 18 is pulling my leg.

I was babysitting siblings at 10 and neighbor children at 12. I traveled everyday from my home in Astoria to Bronx Science on public transportation at 14, and on the 19A bus from my grade school to home from 1 week after starting the first grade.

Either the world is a lot more dangerous or no one is self-sufficient anymore. I have even heard of parents trying to horn in on their children's job interviews.

Anonymous said...

Just make sure that when Election Day comes around, you vote out all the people who made this Maspeth High School happen. Elizabeth Crowley, Marge Markey, Borough President Helen Marshall (who picks the community board members), City Council. Make sure the community board gets the axe too. They don't represent their constituents. As for Walter Sanchez (community board and head of land use committee), pray the Feds truly investigate this guy and lock him up. Don't buy the Queens Ledger. Hit him in the pocketbook.

Anonymous said...

please you can leave your children at home at the age of 13. as parents we are held responsible for them until the age of 18. children travel to school everyday and have no problems. it's just one of those crybaby mothers who want the school. let your children grow up already and get a life.

Anonymous said...

liz is still considering st saviours if this site wasn't going through

Anonymous said...

She can consider it all she wants, SCA already said it was not a good location. And there's even worse public transportation there than at 74th Street.

Anonymous said...

DUMP DIZZY LIZZY, SHE'S ALREADY MADE A MESS OF THINGS. VOTE COMO.