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The BroadsheetDAILY ~ Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper ~ 7/23/21 ~ Community leaders and education advocates are fuming over an apparent about-face by the City’s Department of Education
Hint: When the Department of Education Gives Its Word
Above: Tricia Joyce, chair of Community Board 1’s Youth and Education Committee: “Gyms are really important. They are part of our infrastructure, but the DOE treats them like an amenity.” Below: The new kindergarten through sixth grade public school slated to open on Trinity Place in September, 2022 (visible at the bottom of the skyscraper shown in this rendering) was the subject of a promise by City education officials that it would include a full gymnasium.
Community leaders and education advocates are fuming over an apparent about-face by the City’s Department of Education (DOE), which has backed away from a 2016 promise about the design of the new public elementary school on Trinity Place, in the Financial District (slated to open in September, 2022).
As Tricia Joyce, chair of the Youth and Education Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) explained at the Board’s June 22 meeting, “the School Construction Authority and the DOE gave a presentation to Community Education Council that included the design of the new school, and it showed gymnatorium.”
This was a reference to the hybrid space that DOE has designed for many new schools in recent years, as a cost-cutting measure. It combines aspects off a traditional gym with an auditorium. Such facilities are usually considerably smaller than regulation gyms, which imposes limits on what such a school can offer students, both in terms of its physical education program and its ability to field sports teams for competition with other schools. Combining athletic and performance spaces also means that arts programs are forced to compete with physical education and team sports for use of the same space, with the effect that both offerings are scaled back.
“This is deeply disappointing,” Ms. Joyce continued. “We have only three full-sized gyms for nine public schools in Lower Manhattan. Millennium High School and the Lower Manhattan Community School and both don’t have gyms. These spaces are vital for after-school programs, and for other nearby schools that don’t have gyms.”
“This is really important,” she observed. “It’s part of our infrastructure, but the DOE treats it like an amenity. In 2016, we prevented a gymnatorium from being designed for this school, because of the programming failures that this approach created at Peck Slip,” another Lower Manhattan public school that lacks a gym.
“At Peck Slip,” she recalls, “we had to fight to get the street in front of the school closed, so that kids could have recess and gym at the same time.”
“I have a letter from the Chancellor saying that they were agreeing to put a full gym in the new school for the sake of the kids,” Ms. Joyce noted, “along with letters from elected officials. This was a major victory.”
Ms. Joyce said that she has begun formal inquiries with the DOE, to find out why and when they reconsidered their 2016 commitment, and added that she plans to begin mobilizing community support to have the original plan restored.
Matthew Fenton
What’s Up, PAC?
Construction Milestones and Hiring Mark Progress Toward Planned Arts Venue at World Trade Center
Lower Manhattan is two steps closer to the 2023 debut of its next great amenity. The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, at the World Trade Center, topped off the 138-foot structure in June, and the organization has hired a Director of Civic Alliances, who will cultivate relationships with community-based organizations, public housing residents, community boards, immigrant groups, cultural institutions and elected officials.
Providing Companion and Home Health Aide Care to clients with dementia.Help with grooming, dressing and wheelchair assistance. Able to escort client to parks and engage in conversations of desired topics and interests of client. Reliable & Honest
Lower Manhattan residents once again have access to the ever-popular weekend summer ferry to Red Hook.
Provided by NY Waterway, the free service is nominally about providing access to Ikea, but also offers the bonus of a slew of waterfront restaurants and parks within walking distance of the furniture store.
The service departs from two Downtown locations (Pier 11/Wall Street and the Battery Park City ferry terminal) starting at 11:00 am.
West Thames Pedestrian Bridge Dedicated in Honor of Downtown’s Civic Champion, at Urging of Battery Park City’s Founder
A years-long campaign by Charles J. Urstadt, the founder of Battery Park City, to name the new pedestrian bridge recently constructed over West Street in the memory of Downtown leader Robert Douglass, came to a successful conclusion on June 11, when the structure was officially dedicated.
At the ceremony, Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) president B.J. Jones remarked, “we’re here today to name this magnificent bridge in honor of Robert R. Douglass, who for more than three decades was a champion of Lower Manhattan. To read more…
Celebrate beach season at Brookfield Place with the tallest sand castle in New York City. The Sandcastle Celebration begins on July 23 with world-renowned, professional sand sculptor Matt Long crafting a sandcastle that will “shore-ly” delight visitors of all ages. The live sculpting process will continue through July 26, with the completed sculpture on view from July 27 – August 14.
Every year on the last weekend of July, The Poetry Society of New York (PSNY) invites poetry organizations and collectives of all shapes and sizes to bring their unique formats, aesthetics, and personalities to beautiful Governors Island for The New York City Poetry Festival, a free weekend of readings, workshops, open mics, installations, performances, writing activities, bookselling, children’s programming, a beer garden, delicious food, and a whole lot of lying around in the grass listening to poetry.
Homage to a Hero
Landmarks Agency Confers Protection on Chinatown Monument
The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has granted legally protected status on the Kimlau War Memorial, a granite ceremonial arch located in Chinatown, at the convergence of Chatham Square, Oliver Street, and East Broadway. This designation, made official at the LPC’s June 22 meeting, marks New York’s first individual landmark to commemorate the role of Chinese-Americans in the City’s history.
The arch, which is designed to serve as a gateway to Chinatown, is named for Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, who grew up in Lower Manhattan and graduated from what is now known as the U.S. Army War College in 1937. He signed up for pilot training after the United States entered World War Two four years later.
The Battery Park City Authority’s highly regarded summer music festival, River & Blues, which has presented blues, folk, and roots music in Wagner Park for 20 years is returning with the Grammy Award-winning South Carolina-based quintet, Ranky Tanky (July 22), and Rev Sekou and the Freedom Fighters (July 29), who will perform their Delta Blues-infused anthems for social justice.
Each Thursday evening show begins at 6:00 pm, with DJ Susan Z. Anthony spinning an eclectic mix that sets the stage for the performance that follows. Admission is free.
The Battery Park City Authority asks that the public not interact with or feed the urban wildlife in the neighborhood’s parks and green spaces, and at the waterfront.
Hostile to Hostels
CB1 Endorses Plan to Limit Hotel Development
Community Board 1 (CB1) is getting behind a proposal by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to limit future hotel development. Although this proposal, if adopted, would affect communities throughout the five boroughs, it would have a particularly strong impact in Lower Manhattan, where hotel development has been rampant in recent years.
From 2007 to 2020, the City as a whole added more than 54,000 new hotel rooms — an increase 73 percent increase over the previously existing inventory. A disproportionate share of this growth took place in the square mile below Chambers Street.
More Survivors than Responders Now are Submitting Claims
The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has released its annual report for 2020, which documents some significant developments.
Over the course of its ten years of operation thus far, the VCF has awarded $7.76 billion to more than 34,400 individuals who have suffered death or personal injury as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The vast majority of these injuries take the form of illness caused by exposure to toxic materials that were released by the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Tribeca Sailing offers two-hour private sailing charters of the Harbor, setting sail five times each day, seven days a week. Captain David Caporale, the owner and captain of Tribeca Sailing and a Lower Manhattan resident, also offers private sailing charters for a maximum of six passengers, for those having a staycation, or celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. His sailboat, Tara, is a 1964 custom Hinckley Pilot 35. Hinckleys are noted as a Rolls Royce of sailboats, based on their solid construction, the artistry of the wood trim, and other design features. For more information or to book a sail, contact David Caporale 917-593-2281 or David@Tribecasailing.com
TODAY IN HISTORY
July 23
1962 – Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
811 – Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I plunders the Bulgarian capital of Pliska and captures Khan Krum’s treasury.
1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
1926 – Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
1962 – Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
1982 – Outside Santa Clarita, California, actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed when a helicopter crashes onto them while shooting a scene from Twilight Zone: The Movie.
1995 – Comet Hale–Bopp is discovered; it becomes visible to the naked eye on Earth nearly a year later.
Births
1503 – Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (d. 1547)
1888 – Raymond Chandler, American crime novelist and screenwriter (d. 1959)
1892 – Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
1957 – Theo van Gogh, Dutch actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1973 – Monica Lewinsky, American activist and former White House intern
Deaths
1875 – Isaac Singer, American businessman, founded the Singer Corporation (b. 1811)
1885 – Ulysses S. Grant, American general and politician, 18th President of the United States (b. 1822)
1930 – Glenn Curtiss, American pilot and engineer (b. 1878)
1955 – Cordell Hull, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 47th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1871)
1973 – Eddie Rickenbacker, American pilot and race car driver, founded Rickenbacker Motors (b. 1890)
2001 – Eudora Welty, American novelist and short story writer (b. 1909)
2011 – Amy Winehouse, English singer-songwriter (b. 1983)
