The current flurry of new luxury housing construction in New York City has created a number of quandaries for the city's public schools.
The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools --often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place. To further complicate matters, the high land values that good public schools help create make it increasingly difficult for the city to obtain land on which to build new ones. Developers see the expensive real estate as appropriate for only the most profitable projects, and that does not leave much room for schools.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, whose Upper East Side district includes some of the most severely affected areas, has been urging developers and the Department of Education to find solutions. "Given the value of real estate in New York City," she said, "why should we have any schools, firehouses, or police stations at all?"
The joke is grimly funny because these are essential amenities. But that doesn't make it any easier for the Department of Education to find land for a school in Midtown or Downtown Brooklyn.
Some of city's most seriously overcrowded schools are in the priciest of Manhattan neighborhoods. Six out of eight elementary schools on Manhattan's West Side are operating at more than 100 percent capacity, according to a letter sent to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein by a number of Manhattan elected officials, and several have had to give up teachers' lounges and art classrooms to make space. PS 116 in Murray Hill recently hit 113 percent of capacity as new housing went up all around it, the area's City Council member, Daniel Garodnick, has said. As a result, some students eat lunch at 10:30 a.m., and the school has dropped pre-kindergarten classes and classes for the gifted, according to the Daily News.
The problem extends beyond Manhattan: A recent report by Comptroller William Thompson identified nine areas where the Department of Education's current five-year plan for new school construction will not meet anticipated population growth. The list includes sought-after districts like DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn, and Long Island City alongside burgeoning immigrant neighborhoods like Flushing and Sunset Park. Some 3,000 new apartments are being planned for an area around one school in DUMBO -- PS 287 -- but the department has no plans for any new schools in the area, according to the comptroller. Similarly 2,300 new homes are currently slated for the Upper East Side -- but just one project that would add school seats, the report said. It also found the average elementary school in the area was operating at a debilitating 129 percent of capacity.
Under city law, developers are not required to mitigate the effects their building would have on schools or infrastructure such as subways and roads. (See related story). Given that, city administrators and elected officials have had to be creative about finding ways to convince builders to help address school overcrowding. The strategies for getting additional classrooms tend to fall into one of two categories depending on whether the land is publicly or privately owned.
If the city owns the land for the new school, the building can become a project of the Department of Education's Educational Construction Fund, or ECF, an agency that offers developers the chance to build on public land in exchange for funding schools. The fund does not sell the land it gets from the city. Instead, it issues a request for proposals, picks a developer, then rents the property long-term in exchange for the developer's agreeing to plan and pay for the construction of a school on the site.
There are currently two ECF projects under way. One will provide a new home for East Side Middle School, or MS 114, at the same 91st Street and First Avenue location that PS 151 occupied until 2000. The new school will seat 540 students-190 more than the school's old building at 78th Street and York-in a five-story red-brick structure next to the Azure, a 34-story luxury apartment building slated for construction on the same site. The DeMatteis Organization and The Mattone Group, the project's developers, will pay the entire $45 million cost of building the school.
On May 30, the site came to public attention when a crane collapsed there, killing two people and damaging nearby apartments. When the New York Post learned about the city’s involvement through the construction fund, it blamed the city for the accident. But the incident points to a deeper problem with public/private partnerships. While the director of the Educational Construction Fund, Jamie Smarr, said the developers the fund contracts must follow the same regulations and procedures that the city would when building a school, it’s likely that a developer accustomed to cutting corners will continue the practice when working on a public building.
Staff at East Side Middle school said that they believe the project will proceed in spite of the accident, although work on the site has stopped and they have not been told when the new facility will be completed.
The other project, at 57th street and 2nd avenue, is larger and more complex. The developer, World Wide Holdings, Inc., will replace the High School for Art and Design, rebuild PS 59 with 730 seats rather its original 400 and add an additional school on 63rd Street at a site that students from the other two schools will use as a temporary location during construction.
Not everyone applauds the project, however. Krueger acknowledged that some members of her community "say 'enough is enough' when it comes to new high-rises." But, she argued, at least these buildings offer essential amenities. "The developer is being responsive to the needs of the community," she said.
For their part, company officials described the Educational Construction Fund as a responsive and efficient partner. "The request for proposals process was fair and transparent and took place in an efficient amount of time," Terry Stanley, the co-manager of the 57th Street project, said.
Things can get more contentious when a development is going up on private land. Then, communities must use the various approval procedures to try to get schools included. Requests for rezoning, the city's land use process -- known as ULURP -- and City Council votes all provide some opportunities for neighborhoods to make demands. However, the amount of leverage the community can muster depends more on whether a rezoning is needed than on the urgency of their needs.
Two current cases in this category involve Sheldon Solow and Bruce Ratner, developers not known for harmonious relations with local groups. Solow has proposed converting the former Con Ed site along the East River from 34th Street to 41st Street into a complex of residential and commercial towers. The developer's Environmental Impact Statement estimated that the project would add 417 new students to the already strained local schools, an increase that U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney projected would bring them to 164 percent of capacity by 2014. Originally the developer said the city could bus those students to other areas.
Fortunately for the students, the particularities of the project gave officials plenty of leverage. "Remember," said Garodnick, who was active in the fight to put a school in the project, "they were looking to rezone the site from a manufacturing zone to a zone amenable to both commercial and residential uses. The council could have rejected that rezoning."
Eventually, Solow's firm agreed to include a school in its plan, although the 630 seats slated for the project will do little more than cover the new development's own residents.
Of course, the arm-twisting can go both ways: Bruce Ratner, who agreed to build a school at his Beekman Plaza development in Lower Manhattan, recently threatened to cease construction on it unless he received a 421-a tax abatement valid for 20 years.
Pressure tactics aside, will these public-partnerships do enough to abate school overcrowding? Smarr, the Educational Construction Fund's director, thinks they will. He said the city took a step forward when it reactivated the fund after a nearly 30-year hiatus. Additionally, the Department of Education's current five-year plan includes the "record amount" of 63,000 new schools seats.
Yet many elected representatives remain unsatisfied. Gale Brewer, the City Council member from Manhattan's Upper West Side, has been arguing for years that the city must reconsider how it measures overcrowding. Currently, the city looks at an entire community school district, which includes dozens of schools and many neighborhoods. "If you ask the Department of Education if school district three is overcrowded, they'll say no," she said, "because the area north of 96th Street is not."
She blames this system for what she sees as the department's failure to address overcrowding in the southern half of the district and a missed opportunity to build a school in the Riverside South project. There, the developer Extell actually handed the city a site, but the Department of Education has not committed to build a school on it because the district, according to the city's numbers, is not overcrowded.
The department has said it will consider Brewer's suggestion on how to measure overcrowding next year.
Other proposals look beyond the Department of Education to ask deeper questions about the responsibilities of developers in today's New York City. Krueger, for instance, suggested that the zoning laws be changed so that developers be encouraged to focus on essential amenities, such as schools, rather than minor ones like small pocket parks. And Garodnick is working with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson to research a possible bill or charter change that would "more directly tie new developments to new school construction."
Would Garodnick require developers to help build schools for the new residents they bring into neighborhoods? He's not sure yet. "It's a conversation we're having with the Department of Education," he said.
There is, of course, a danger in transferring too much of the responsibility for school construction to developers, who are not elected and don't necessarily act out of public interest. And this is just one idea under consideration. Under the banner of Scott Stringer's recent call for a "war room" of new school planning, elected officials seem to agree that the city must adopt measures to take into account the pressures that new developments put on local schools. What form that might take remains to be seen.
James Trimarco is a journalist and consulting editor at Yes! Magazine. Â
On a muggy summer afternoon, students in school uniforms huddle around a long conference table at St. John's University School of Law, scribbling on yellow legal pads and reviewing a set of maps dating back to the 19th century.
"You are going to recreate the environment that existed in Jamaica, Queens in the 1890s," says Professor Victoria Brown-Douglas, tall and authoritative, as she counseled her band of apprentices to learn to think like lawyers, judges, witnesses and members of a jury. "At the end of this we're going to courthouses all over the city, and we're going to tell the world what happened during the desegregation school wars of Jamaica, Queens."
"Their child wasn't allowed to go to a good school," says Alex Samaroo, 12, as he excitedly taps his white Air Jordans together. "And the parents didn't want to accept it."
Alex has explained what lies at the heart of a forgotten legal case that these Queens middle school students are forensically excavating this summer. He and his fellow students from the Immaculate Conception School in Jamaica are the unlikely torchbearers of a unique experiment in cross-curricular educational collaboration. They are working with students and staff at nearby St. John's Law School, as well as librarians at the Queens Library, to bring to life a century's old school discrimination case that led to the desegregation of New York State Schools in 1900.
They could be teaching a lesson as well as learning one. With the city middle schools widely agreed to be in crisis with low test scores and low levels of student interest, the city has concentrated on professional development and focused on teaching to the test and stressing basic subjects. The collaboration in Queens, though, could offer a different kind of model, emphasizing creativity and in-depth coverage of subjects beyond basic language arts and math.
The case revolves around Jacob Cisco, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Cisco, two middle-class African American residents of the village of Jamaica. In 1895, they refused to enroll their son in the local "colored" school, arguing that the teaching was inferior to that at the local "white" school, P.S. 49. In a legal battle that lasted for five years, Samuel Cisco, a cooper whose family had lived in Jamaica for 80 years, was arrested twice for protesting his son's exclusion from the school.
Samuel Cisco died in 1897, but his wife Elizabeth continued to push the case. Elizabeth Cisco and her attorney eventually drafted a law to end legalized segregation in New York City public schools. It was brought to newly elected Gov. Theodore Roosevelt. According to research by St. John's librarian William Manz, Roosevelt refused to consider it until it was amended to apply to the entire state. In 1900, he signed it into law Ăł barring racial segregation in New York State public schools more than 50 years before Brown vs. Board of Education did the same nationwide.
To find out about this obscure but significant episode in their history, the students pored over old issues of The Brooklyn Eagle and used Google Earth to map the location of the now demolished ëcolored school.' After they discovered it to be the site of the current York College athletic field, the students visited the president of the college and proposed naming the athletic field Cisco Field, in honor of the family whose five-year long struggle has gotten little to no recognition until now.
The students plan to weave the results of their research into a mock trial script that will be performed in public at various venues citywide during Black History Month next year. They have applied for a grant from the History Channel to eventually turn that performance into a documentary film.
"They're really going to be the first ones to get the story out to a larger audience," says Manz, senior research librarian at St. John's Law School and author of the original article in the New York State Bar Association Journal that ignited the student project. "Students these days are getting their history instruction from original documents, but this kind of project takes it even further. I think the hardest part for the kids is going to be getting in to the mindset of the people who lived during that time. Putting together the mock trial is going to require them to come up with arguments against, and for, separate but equal."
"They probably thought black students couldn't think as fast or as well as white students," says Elizabeth Edwards, 14, as she tries to put herself in the shoes of those who defended segregation at the time. "Learning about all of this has made me a lot more interested in law," says Elizabeth, who graduated from Immaculate Conception in the spring but continued to work on the project over the summer.
Carl Ballenas, a social studies teacher at the Immaculate Conception School and moderator of the Aquinas Honor Society, the student group undertaking the project, says that this kind of site-specific study helps students make a connection to local history. In addition, as the students work with a variety of people from nearby educational and community institutions, they learn to collaborate with several, sometimes competing groups and organizations.
"The project is teaching these student to present their ideas in public, to pay attention to details, to take on leadership roles," said Ballenas. "It is also showing a lot of the adults they meet that these kids can teach us a lot if we pay attention. We don't need to wait until they are in high school or college."
This kind of multi-layered collaboration is not uncommon in some of the city's more specialized high schools or nonprofit organizations. Last year students at the Millennium Arts Academy in the Bronx worked with Elders Share the Arts to produce an evening of short plays performed by a group of senior citizens, based on oral histories about their lives. The plays depicted stories of involvement in the civil rights movement, of surviving the German bombing of London in 1941 and of facing housing discrimination in New York.
This summer CityArts, a nonprofit arts organization, has developed a unique collaboration between teens in Bedford-Stuyvesant and world-renowned Brazilian painter and muralist Duda Penteado to create a massive "Global HeART Warming" mural on the side of St. John's recreation center in the neighborhood.
"When I was their age, I definitely wasn't doing anything this ambitious over the summer," says Paul Pagano, 25, a third-year law student at St. John's who is working with the Immaculate Conception students, and explained to them the importance of developing the theory of the case on a recent afternoon. Pagano pointed out that the case had been largely forgotten and urged the students to do their part in expanding recognition for these little known turn-of-the-century equal rights crusaders.
"Today when you google Samuel or Elizabeth Cisco, you only get 3 or 4 hits," says Pagano. "We're going to make sure that what they fought for in New York is something that other students will eventually be learning in history class."
Joseph Huff-Hannon is a writer on culture and politics, based in Brooklyn. Â
Artists in Lower Manhattan fear a so-called totalitarian takeover of their vending privileges. Partygoers in Queens may hail a stricter carbon monoxide detector proposal, and parents might praise a bill that allows them to disregard parking rules while picking up their kids.
All of these bills, and more, have been proposed at the City Council recently -- some may fail, some may flourish. Check out our latest round up.
Years ago, Councilmember Alan Gerson of Manhattan took aim at street vendors. From DVD poachers to hand bag hawkers, the councilman looked to limit the amount of merchants so that they would no longer threaten public safety by clogging city streets, he argued.
While he was unsuccessful, Gerson is looking to regulate the industry again. Some of these bills were inspired from meetings with representatives of vending groups in the city, said the councilman's spokesperson, and some are already garnering criticism.
First, Gerson would like to prohibit general vending from vehicles (Intro 767). The legislation would not apply to food vendors, but those that peddle merchandise. The legislation would impact sellers using their car hoods, trunks or roofs.
In addition he is proposing legislation (Intro 766) that would rescind a requirement for a food handler's license if a shop or establishment is only selling packaged food.
Gerson is also attempting (Intro 768) to require vendors take a written exam that tests their knowledge on the city's vending laws. This bill would apply to both general merchandise and food vendors. In attempt to avoid overcrowded sidewalks, Gerson is also proposing to require (Intro 769) vendors be more than two feet from any building or structure, including muni-meters, light posts and trees or plantings. That proposal would also apply to merchandise and food vendors.
What is likely to be his most controversial proposal, Gerson is attempting to redefine what can be classified as merchandise that falls within the first amendment -- sales that cannot be restricted or prohibited. Previously, the council member attempted to limit that to two-dimensional pieces, meaning paintings, pamphlets or leaflets.
That proposal hit significant roadblocks from artists and civil libertarians. Now, the councilman is (Intro 770) attempting to define protected material again. Under the legislation, vendors would not need to apply for a permit if the material was "predominantly expressive in nature and whose utility is of secondary importance, including, but not limited to, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and other visual art, whether original or not."
While it is a more expansive take than his previous attempts, some in the vending and art community continue to oppose any restriction.
In The Villager, Kurt Brokaw of the New School wrote: "This new twist is Gerson’s three-dimensional prohibition, just expressed more subtly. Gerson has to be aware that in any court challenge, the concept of 'found art' is well established as a primary expressive medium, and he will lose in a New York minute."
So far, none of these bills have received a hearing nor have they garnered a significant amount of co-sponsors.
Several council members are looking for a little more disclosure at the Police Department, from domestic violence statistics to reporting requirements for auxiliary police.
Councilmember David Weprin introduced legislation (Intro 788) that requires the department submit quarterly reports on officer assignments, specifying particular units, and what type of equipment, from bullet proof vests to radios, had been issued to auxiliary officers. Following the death of two auxiliary police officers last year, Weprin announced a 10-point plan to improve public safety. Part of that plan was providing officers equipment, like bulletproof vests.
Elsewhere, Councilmember Melissa Mark Viverito introduced legislation (Intro 774) that requires the department release domestic violence statistics on its Web site, including the number of murders, assaults and felonies related to domestic violence.
Councilmember Jimmy Vacca also proposed a bill (Intro 775) requiring the department report the number of traffic violations for trucks both citywide and per council district on a quarterly basis.
Last spring, 42 people, including the bride, were hospitalized from exposure to carbon monoxide at a wedding at a dining hall in Queens.
No one noticed the odorless gas wafting about the room until the mother of the groom collapsed on the dance floor. Carbon monoxide detectors were not installed at the facility.
A bill introduced by Councilmember Thomas White of Queens (Intro 789) would require detectors in certain public spaces, including restaurants and performing arts centers. Currently, only public buildings and residences require detectors.
"We didn’t realize you didn’t have to have a carbon monoxide detector," said White's head legislative aide, Josh Wojehowski. He also called the bill a "no-brainer."
Councilmember Oliver Koppell introduced legislation (Intro 780) that would require any parking garage or lot with 50 spaces or more also provide parking for bikes. One bike spot would have to be provided for every 10 motor vehicle spots.
Councilmember John Liu introduced legislation (Intro 785) that suspends parking rules between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. as well as 2:45 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. on streets adjacent to public schools. Under the bill, the rules would also be suspended on roads adjacent to private schools that service the fifth grade or below.
Councilmember Letitia James introduced legislation (Intro 772) that would require hotels include extra fees, such as extra costs for electricity, in their advertisements along with their rates. Â