Because this site focuses on news, the Spotlight feature is reserved for the businesses that have been around awhile and don’t get the coverage they should. Tribecan Linda Ensko founded Buckle My Shoe preschool in the West Village in 1981 and added a second location in Tribeca in 1986 — that means she is creeping up on 40 years here in the neighborhood.

Linda Ensko & Genvieve Johnson

How did you get started in this business?
Time just flies! I was working in a private school in the West Village in 1980 and I had 38 second graders by myself in a very top-down environment. So I decided to start a school where the children would be given an individualized education and the proper love and care. There’s a lot of flexibility because we are not teaching to the standards — we are teaching to the child. I found a space on 13th Street [that location just moved to a bigger space last summer on West 14th Street] and talked my sister into coming with me. She taught third grade in an adjoining classroom with 42 children.

In 1995 I made the business into a non-profit. We were paying a lot of commercial rent and paying taxes on top of that. And I didn’t come into this as a business person. I came in as an educator.

Did you always want to be a teacher?
I always loved children. If you want to go back to the real beginning, when I was 10, I would go over to the moms on the block who were in their 30s and I would take care of their babies. It just felt like such a natural thing to do, to be with the babies. I loved taking them outside in the grass. My mom always said, “No TV, go outside and play.” She would ring the cowbell for dinner and if we didn’t come home, she wouldn’t let us back out again after dinner.

That’s the major component I brought to the program from the beginning. We bring the nature inside. We bring mud in the classrooms, we have a lot of plants growing in galvanized tubs. We collect leaves. We paint with pine branches. And we share a garden plot in Washington Market Park.

Why here?
I moved to Independence Plaza straight out of college in 1977 when I was 22. Then I moved to the West Village on 7th and 14th and taught at St Joseph’s for three years. So I started the first school around the corner from where I lived, and the second school around the corner from my very first apartment and now my current apartment — I live on Thomas Street. I raised my kids in Battery Park City.

In the early ’80s, when I happened to come back to Tribeca after a few years in the Village, I saw grass and a gazebo where a mudhole used to be [that was Washington Market Park]. I wanted to start a school here once I saw that grass and the park. I had a parent who was already bringing her kid to the Village from Tribeca and she said she would find me a loft.

What was your first spot?
We were on Duane Street first for about six years, and then one of our dads who was a real estate lawyer said commercial real estate was getting soft — he said, “I am going to get you a bank.” It turned out to be my bank, Manufacturers Hanover — we did weekly deposits here and never once when I stood in line did I think it would be a preschool.

You seem to have a thing for banks.
Yes! Our new space is another bank, and Jeff Gural, our landlord here, owns that building too. He’s been an amazing landlord. He sent his grandkids to me and now we’ve been here 32 years.

What are you known for?
I guess higher-level thinking. I went to see Dr. George Forman’s Reggio Emilio school at UMass Amherst in the ’90s and he said that the children at Buckle My Shoe have to think a little harder. He called the teachers “provocateurs” – you have to set up provocation for kids to think. For example, he took all the chairs out of the classroom and the kids had to then figure out how to do what they needed to do using what they had. It was a fun task in independent thinking. When you give a child an answer to a question, it takes away their ‘aha moments.’ If they can come up with their own information, they are very proud of their answers. It empowers them.

Plus we use sensory integration — that’s how children learn. They don’t learn with a pencil and a worksheet. The neurons do not spark unless they can touch and use all of their senses.

What’s the most satisfying part of what you do?
Before the age of 5 is a very powerful time. It’s the highest period of creativity and imagination. A baby uses 98 percent of its brain. By the time they are 4, it drops down to 44 percent That’s why it’s a window for language. I call it the Early Advantage. It the time of exploration and discovery.

Plus seeing the children every day makes me so happy. I talk to them and they have so much to say, even the 2-year-olds. Some of them have been here since they were born. It’s amazing to see their progression.

Ok, well maybe the most satisfying thing is to see my alumni send their children here. We had a dad on a tour here recently with his 1-year-old. He said, “Do you know who I am?” And I said, “Yes, Ben.” His curls were gone, but the eyes never change.

Tribeca has obviously changed a lot since you started…
When I first lived here, you couldn’t even get a cab. You’d call the dispatcher and they would put the roller skating music on. I would run to Church Street from Independence Plaza and even then you couldn’t get a cab.

In the beginning, all our parents were artists — we even used to do barters. By 1986 it had changed greatly and now most of our parents are in the corporate arena. What’s stayed the same is our parents are still very involved in the school.

Where do you eat around here?
We love Frenchette –- we loved Roger first. We used to live in Tribeca’s Kitchen — we were close with Andy. Odeon is always a staple. We were so sad when Sol di Capri closed. We love Fonda on Duane –- we just did a teacher thing there. And we loved Le Zinc before it was Fonda.

What does the future hold?
The parents in the West Village had been asking us to add a program for infants and toddlers for 20 years now, but all that time I felt that one big school was enough. [Tribeca is 8500 square feet and has 110 kids. The Village location is now 7500 square feet and will eventually have 97 kids.] But once my daughters Genvieve [head of operations] and Amelie [site director] came on board, I felt we could do it. It’s a chance for my girls to create something for themselves. And it lets me step back a little.

Previously in this series:
••• bodē nyc
••• Élan Flowers
••• Korin
••• Hal Bromm Gallery
••• Tortola Salon
••• R & Company
••• Duane Park Patisserie
••• Chambers Street Wines
••• Floratech
••• Estancia 460
••• Boomerang Toys
••• Benvenuto Cafe
••• Real Pilates
••• Church Street School for Music and Art
••• Church Street Surplus
••• Lance Lappin Salon
••• Joseph Carini Carpets
••• Balloon Saloon
••• Fountain Pen Hospital
••• Abhaya
••• Chambers Pottery
••• Square Diner
••• Double Knot
••• Philip Williams Posters