In the News: The City Recognizes Our Need for Schools

••• “The city’s Department of Education on Tuesday announced its plan for building new schools over the next five years, and among them are two 456-seat elementary schools in Lower Manhattan.” Wait for it…. “Sites for them have yet to be identified.” —Tribeca Trib

••• “Seaport City Study Focuses On Levees, Not A New Neighborhood.” Which is good because could that rendering be more generic? —Curbed

••• Ward III’s recipe for an Old-Fashioned. —New York Times

••• “Olive’s, a longtime fixture offering freshly made takeout foods at 120 Prince St., is launching a new spot in the revamped Brookfield Place.” —DNAinfo

••• The ribbon-cutting for 4 World Trade Center is Wednesday. But that “doesn’t mean people will be working in its offices any time soon. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey […] is leasing 600,000 square-feet in 4 World Trade but doesn’t expect to move in until early 2015.” —New York Post

••• Pace’s new dorm is open (I thought it was at 180 Broadway, but the Broadsheet says it’s 182).

••• “New Amsterdam Market, which has been fighting long and hard to preserve and rehabilitate the Seaport and the Old Fulton Fish Market as a historic, public asset, is organizing a ‘Support Simply Seafood’ [Simply Seafood is the lone holdout in Pier 17] gathering at the restaurant this weekend. Anyone interested in attending the event, which takes place on Saturday at 6 p.m., should email rsvp@newamsterdammarket.org for more details.” —Eater

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3 Comments

  1. Why couldn’t any one of the new developments being built downtown have been forced to include a school. Those residential properties will be completed, sold and occupied way before 2018-19. Also, with all of the extra 5th graders graduating this year from the overcrowded elementary schools, it will be interesting to see how big a shortage there is going to be for middle school seats. Has there been any further discussion on when The Spruce Street School will be opening up their middle school seats if ever?

  2. Spruce was/is not an option for current fifth graders’ middle school enrollment applications for fall 2014. Spruce’s middle school opens in 2015. Spruce’s current fourth graders will need to apply next fall for middle school in 2015. That, as they say, is that.

    The Historic Explanation:
    Almost ten years ago, the city went to CB1 and asked for an upzoning for the Barnes&Noble bldg at Warren&Greenwich. CB1 agreed, in exchange for the promise of a lower Manhattan school, specifically an in-zone K-8. The commercial building went up in eight months, the K-8 arrived 6-8 years later. During the ’08-09 rezoning CEC2 debate, arguments in favor of 234-favored zoning included repeated, puzzling vitriol toward Spruce, an as-then unbuilt school (dangerous neighborhood, dangerous intersections, it’s not Tribeca, damage to property values, gonna be a lousy school, etc) despite parents being reminded – back in ’09 – that Spruce would be an in-zone only K-8, grown as it fills. So for those ’09 critics of Spruce with children in 234 now, I wish you great luck in the middle school application process.

  3. Confirming what jfrankp said. I tried to sign up for a tour of Spruce St and being just on the other side of Church they wouldn’t even let us tour the school. There will be no middle school seats there for Tribecans. The same goes for PS 276 – couldn’t even get a tour. PS 89 is more open to the tours – maybe it’s middle school is bigger, but again being a K-8 school means the vast majority of seats for 6th grade are taken up by zoned 5th grade kids. What 234 really needs is the ability to extend to 8th grade.