Rendering of the Peck Slip School, to open in 2015.
It will be another three years before the Peck Slip School’s building opens. But School Construction Authority (SCA) officials are showing what the finished structure will look like.
Most notable are the two floors added to the four-story former post office, vacated this year. The top, sixth floor will be an enclosed rooftop playground with metal fabric to keep balls from sailing onto Peck Slip.
A “gymatorium,” combination of gym and auditorium, with stage and removable seats, occupies the fifth floor of the elementary school. “It’s not necessarily what we would have liked but as you can see we maxed out every floor,” the SCA’s Michael Mirisola told Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force last month during a presentation on the school’s layout.
The plan for five sections per grade and 712 students precludes room for a separate gym and auditorium, Marisola said.
The school entrance will be on Peck Slip, with lobby, exercise and lunch rooms on the first floor. Offices will be on the second floor, music and library on the fourth. The fifth floor will house the art and science rooms as well as upper level of the double-floor-height "gymatorium." Classrooms will occupy the second through fifth floors.
Several people on the task force expressed disappointment that a separate gym and auditorium would not be provided. But following the presentation the group gave a chorus of approval for the overall plan. “Nice design,” they announced. “It’s a beautiful building.”