Political Change Offers Hope For School In BPC

By Etta Sanders
POSTED DEC.4, 2006

Community Board 1 is looking for a few good sites—for more new Downtown schools. High on the list of candidates is a 135,000 square foot space adjacent to a 360-foot-tall residential building under development at the southern end of Battery Park City, known as Site 2B. The site is also supposed to contain a community amenity. That “amenity” was earmarked by Gov. George Pataki for the Museum of Women’s History and Leadership Center, a 10-story-tall, $150 million building that would be Battery Park City’s second largest cultural institution. But after nearly seven years and $2.2 million in state startup funds, the museum has yet to raise any money on its own.

Asked how long they would wait for the museum plan to be viable, Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) president James Cavanaugh said, “We’ve never had a deadline.”

But the community is growing impatient. 

With the burgeoning population of families and the rapid rate of residential construction, “We face a real crisis,” said CB1 chairwoman Julie Menin in an interview last month, adding. “We’re not saying the Women’s Museum is not an excellent idea, just not at that site. We’re going to fight very hard to get a school there.”

Community board members are hoping that Eliot Spitzer will lend a sympathetic ear to those school needs when he takes over as governor in January. “Certainly everybody is waiting to see what the new administration is going to do,” said Paul Hovitz, who is a member of the CB1 new schools task force.

In June CB1 passed a resolution that said “the board does not believe that it is wise to let Site 2B remain fallow, when it could be the home of a much needed public amenity such as a school.” The next month, Menin sent a letter to the BPCA requesting that it not make any legally binding action with the museum.

According to Menin, Cavanaugh told her that the Authority could not take any action until January. Cavanaugh told the Trib last month there had been no change in the plans for Site 2B. “At this point the site is still set as the site for the Women’s Museum,” he said.

Pataki announced the museum plan  in 2000. He appointed his senior advisor on women’s issues, Lynn Rollins, to be the director, and his wife Libby as chairwoman.

Rollins, who spoke optimistically about the museum in previous interviews with the Trib, would not comment last month. “I don’t really have anything to say about it,” she said.

Menin said the issue of the school versus museum at Site 2B highlights frustration over the Battery Park City Authority’s response to community needs.

The Authority is run by a board of directors appointed by the Governor. The board should have at least one neighborhood resident, said Menin.

“People who do not live in our community do not understand how decisions affect the community,” she said. 

A new Downtown middle school is the community board’s top capital priority.

One idea that has been floated is the eventual conversion of P.S./I.S. 89 to a kindergarten through 5th  grade school to accommodate the growing number of families with young children moving into the new apartments in Battery Park City. A new middle school could then be built at Site 2B.

The New Schools Task Force is looking for other possible school locations, including the South Street Seaport and the site of the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, which is now undergoing deconstruction.

The task force is also looking to finance a professional demographic survey to project how many children will be living Downtown as the population grows. Board members say it will help to demonstrate to the city the need for more Downtown schools.

But it will also help if they can identify where a school can go. “We’re more likely to get a school down here if we find a site,” said CB1 member Jeff Galloway said at a task force meeting last month.