Biggest Tot Boom Is Hitting Downtown

by Carl Glassman and Etta Sanders

More than an hour before dawn one frigid morning last month, Jean-David Boujhan arrived outside Park Preschool on Warren Street to register his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. To his astonishment, he was not the first one there.
Toddlers take a pizza break at the Washington Market Toddler School on Duane Street. Photo: Carl Glassman

"I was third on line," Boujhan said. "There were braver fathers than me."

First in line was Ben Braun, who arrived at 5 a.m. and stayed until his toes were numb. His wife, Candice, who had given birth two weeks earlier to their second child, relieved him at 7:45, their 26-month-old son, Jack, in tow. By then, still more than an hour before the doors opened, the line stretched down the block.

Krhis DellaPace, an administrator at the school, was startled when she arrived at work and saw the line. "Last year there were two men [waiting] at 8:00," she recalled.

The long line of shivering parents vying for a place in a local preschool is just one of many signs that Lower

Manhattan-and Tribeca in particular-is experiencing what many agree is the biggest baby and toddler boom that the neighborhood has seen.

"There has been an unbelievable increase," said Kerry Pedersen, a nurse practitioner at Tribeca Pediatrics on Harrison Street. "We are seeing four or five newborns a day. There used to be maybe one a day."

A preschool fair held last month at Stuyvesant High School drew more than 200 people, many of them pregnant. A survey by the Trib of local preschool programs provides a vivid picture of the neighborhood's exploding child population.
  • Suellen Epstein, who owns Children's Tumbling on Murray Street, said the number of children in her toddler classes are growing, literally, by leaps and bounds-double what they were a few years ago and more than she has seen in her 28 years in Tribeca.
  • At Buckle My Shoe, there is a growing waiting list of children from three months to two years old.
  • The Battery Park City Nursery is adding space for 25 more children.
  • The Montessori School of Manhattan on Beach Street, now a pre-school and kindergarten, is expanding into a full elementary school in 2005 to become Tribeca's first private elementary school. (See "A Private Elementary School for Tribeca") As for the preschool enrollment, director Bridie Gauthier said it has already doubled last year's numbers.
  • Church Street School of Music and Art is expanding this spring to a second floor. "This year, without a doubt, is our biggest toddler year ever," said director Lisa Ecklund-Flores. "We had fall classes close in mid-summer and huge offerings of monetary rewards to get into class."
  • At NYC Elite Gymnastics and Dance, just north of Canal Street, co-owner Tina Ferriola reports that baby and toddler classes fill up as much as two months before the start of the sessions.
  • Washington Market Toddler School expects to turn away roughly half the 240 families who have applied for the fall, said director Ronnie Moskowitz, who founded the school 28 years ago. "The magnitude of the numbers is weighing on our minds," she said. "I'm sad to the core."
  • The kiddie boom is having an impact far beyond bustling toddler programs and stroller gridlock on Greenwich Street. Along with the planned Montessori elementary school, the Downtown Little School on Dutch Street is expanding to include a first grade this fall. And the Claremont School, a private kindergarten through 8th grade is expected to open on Broad Street in September 200

P.S. 234, which last year added a fifth kindergarten class and converted offices into a pre-K classroom, is now in the midst of deciding which to give up-a computer, art or science room-in order to add another classroom in the fall. There has also been talk of leasing trailers some time down the road.

"We may be able to squeak by next year," said Principal Sandy Bridges. "But in two years we're going to have a really major problem."In the meantime, Bridges anticipates only about 10 openings in the school's pre-kindergarten classes after preference is given to siblings. This month, the school is doling out those slots through lottery, thus avoiding last year's predawn line of parents, some of whom slept in their cars to insure enrollment.

Hoping to limit the number of new arrivals, the school's PTA is girding to fight against a 35-story residential tower planned for next door. (See "CB1 and P.S. 234 Prepare to

These are just a few of the parents who stood in line last month to register their children at the Park Preschool. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum
Fight Tower for Tribeca".) And Community Board 1 is in search of a site east of Broadway to house a new kindergarten through eighth grade school. According to Bridges, 140 students at her school live on the east side of Broadway
 
Children play at Children's Tumbling, where Suellen Epstein, the director, says the demand for toddler programs is greater than any time in her 28 years in Tribeca. Photo: Stephanie Keith
P.S. 89 in Battery Park City, with its smaller zone, doesn't have P.S. 234's pressures yet, says Principal Ronnie Najjar. But the future is less certain, with new buildings in the north neighborhood filling quickly with newborns and toddlers. She counts 12 children from the Solaire alone, an apartment house at 20 River Terrace completed less than six months ago.

"I have a lot of young families in my school who just gave birth and have toddlers," said Najjar. "There are a lot of young siblings of our kids."

Candice Braun said her building at 400 Chambers St. in Battery Park City is crawling with tykes three and under for her son to play with. "There are a ton of kids his age and lots of their mothers are having babies," she said. "And that's just the people we know."

In Tribeca, newly converted residential buildings are filling largely with wealthy young couples drawn to the family-friendly neighborhood and its sprawling lofts. According to a study by CB1, 13 buildings have opened in Tribeca since 2000 and another 11 conversions are pending, for a total of more than 1,800 units.

The Financial District and South Street Seaport areas also are spawning grounds for new families, with nearly 6,500 units opened since 2000 or pending construction.
With no end to the boom in sight, P.S. 234's Sandy Bridges looks to the school's crowded future with dismay.

"All I can do is say, 'Look, we have a problem,' and hope someone will help," Bridges said. "P.S. 234 is a wonderful school and it behooves school and city officials to make sure it's not destroyed."