Downtown Leaders Pursuing Their Dream of a High School Community leaders hoping to create a new high school downtown face two giant tasks: raising $15 million, and finding a site. Last month they pressed ahead on both fronts. George Olsen, president of the P.S. 234 PTA, and Kevin Fisher completed a draft grant proposal for Friends of Community Board One, a nonprofit arm of the board, which plans to apply to foundations, corporations and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation as early as this month. The proposal lays out the need for a 500-student high school in Lower Manhattan and identifies a vacant three-story warehouse at 40 Laight Street as a possible site. "CB1 urgently needs funds to insure that the site is not lost to other uses," the plan states. If funding is received soon, a high school could open in September 2003, according to the document. CB1’s Youth and Education Committee discussed the proposed school last month. Roy Moskowitz of School District 2 told the board that the district had recently received a $50,000 grant to plan a new high school, and should hear this month whether it won an additional half-million dollars for startup costs. While downtown parents may want the new high school to give preference to their children, Moskowitz reiterated the district’s opposition to zoning for middle and high schools. But, he added, when a new high school reaches its third or fourth year, a majority of its students usually come from the closest middle schools. "We believe that will happen here, too, over time, without us legislating where kids go to school," he said. The 40 Laight Street site could face opposition, with possible concerns about the air near the Holland Tunnel and the influx of teens into the neighborhood. The building is also too small for a full-size gym, Moskowitz said. CB1 is exploring other prospective locations, including a development site that is now a parking lot behind the Manhattan Mini-Storage at 131 Varick Street, and the Downtown Athletic Club. "If the hope is for the school to serve our youth, then the closer we get it to us, the better," said Paul Hovitz, chairman of CB1’s New School Task Force. The district’s fifth high school will open in September in Chelsea and move to East 76th Street in the fall of 2003.