Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Building more towers on top of schools


From CBS New York:

The city reportedly has plans to knock down two Upper West Side elementary schools to allow high-rise apartment buildings to go up in their place.

The Department of Education’s Educational Construction Fund listed the sites, on 61st Street and 70th Street, in Crain’s New York last fall, calling for interested developers to come forward.

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer is up in arms over selling P.S. 191 and 199 to developers, WCBS 880′s Rich Lamb reported. Brewer said millions of dollars that have been plowed into improvements into those schools will go down the drain.

“Do we want more tall towers in our neighborhood? We have Riverside South, we have three tall towers, some of which are 60 stories going up on Amsterdam Ave. and 69th Street and I could go on and on about the development on the West Side,” Brewer told Lamb.

But Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott noted that any new construction would require the developers to build cutting-edge schools for free on the lower floors of whatever structure they put up.

“We have several projects out there like that. There’s a project up in the 90s East Side where there’s a building with condominiums and below that is a great school at no cost to the taxpayers,” Walcott told reporters including Lamb on Monday.

Walcott added he would never sacrifice a school.

Brewer said taller towers mean more families with kids and bigger schools. Though there will be hearings, Brewer added that knocking down schools “to build more towers is being foisted upon us.”

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

when the SOCIAL ENGINEERS take over the school,/luxury condos , the value of the condos will deflate drastically.

the streets in front of these buildings will become yellow school bus terminals for 180 days /year.

the human flight will be swift.

Anonymous said...

Anon No. 1:

I'd say it's more greedy real estate groups than social engineers.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... I have to choose between two "luxury" condos -- one with the lower floors occupied with K-thru-12 and the other with no school, just other condo owners... Easy choice to make.

Anonymous said...

the streets in front of these buildings will become yellow school bus terminals for 180 days /year.

________________________________________________

It largely depends on the school zone size. If a school is a magnet elementary school drawing from students across the borough, then there will be lots of buses from beyond walking range. If the school is a middle school, and has a catchment area of 1/2 x 1/2 miles, then everybody walks (except disabled/special ed).

Anonymous said...

NYC's schools suck anyway!
Hey, Bloomberg, wasn't your legacy to be to improve education?

Anonymous said...

success of government public union schools is a "DREAMS FROM MY FATHER" fantasy.

it is the failure of social engineering in nyc schools.

Anonymous said...

Anon No. 6:

I can see that the school system didn't do very well in teaching you how to write a sentence in English.