Giving Greed a Grade

Today (Tuesday, November 13), concerned parents, community leaders, and local elected officials — including City Council member Margaret Chin, State Assembly member Deborah Glick, and State Senator Brian Kavanagh — will lead a rally to protest the planned closure of P.S. 150, an award-winning local elementary school that has educated generations of Downtown kids.

The school is slated to be shuttered because the landlord who owns the space wants to put in a gym for residents of the upscale apartment complex located above.

Supporters of the school want the lease extended until 2022, when a new space for P.S. 150 (currently under construction on Trinity Place) will be ready. The plan currently being considered by the City’s Department of Education (DOE) would move P.S. 150 twice, first (in the fall of 2019) to the Peck Slip School, in the South Street Seaport District, which is already overcrowded. And then once more, sometime around the year 2022, when the new school currently being built on Trinity Place, in the Financial District, opens. In any of these scenarios, Lower Manhattan will suffer a cumulative loss of school seats relative to what parents and local leaders had been led to expect, because new schools like Peck Slip and the Trinity Place facility were originally billed as providing classrooms and seats in addition to those already in operation, rather than instead of seats that would be removed by closing an extant school.

Today’s rally will begin at 3:00 pm, on the steps of P.S. 150, located at 334 Greenwich Street, near the corner of Jay Street.

	City Council member Margaret Chin: “We are rallying to save a local school from conversion into luxury amenities by the school’s landlords. This community needs more schools, not less.”

“We are rallying to save a local school from conversion into luxury amenities by the school’s landlords, Vornado Realty and Stellar Management,” explains Ms. Chin. “This community needs more schools, not less. The loss of this exceptional school would not only affect P.S. 150 students, but it would also have a ripple effect throughout our neighborhoods, which are seeing an influx of families with young children.”

She continued, “the Department of Education’s current plan — which was only given to P.S. 150 parents, teachers and administrators last month — would have this school community potentially move twice in a five-year time span. It is clear that the best option for P.S. 150 students and the community at large would be for the school to stay indefinitely, or at least for a period of time that would allow for more productive and thoughtful conversations about its future.”

“Today’s rally will show our strength and unity when it comes to doing what’s best for our children,” she added. “It is our hope that the landlords will hear our appeal, and come back to the table with the School Construction Authority [SCA], with the goal of allowing this school to stay open.”

State Assembly member Deborah Glick: “The Tribeca community has a long history of advocacy and community involvement at P.S 150. For years, the school has proved to be a gem in the neighborhood through its fundraising and educational accolades.”

“People are angry and upset that landlords would seek to evict an award-winning school in order to keep the space empty so that they can build luxury amenities for future residents,” Ms. Chin concluded. “What about the needs of the families who are here now? We are joining together to make sure their voices are heard.”

Ms. Glick noted, “the Tribeca community has a long history of advocacy and community involvement at P.S 150. For years, the school has proved to be a gem in the neighborhood through its fundraising and educational accolades. If the children are forced to lose their sense of community by being co-located at Peck Slip, before being permanently located at Trinity, I’m afraid the student body will suffer and the sense of community that makes P.S 150 such a great school will be altered in ways we may not be able to recover from moving forward.”

P.S. 150 Parent-Teacher Association co-president Anshal Purohit (shown here with her son, who is a student at the school): “We, and local elected officials, were shocked to learn in October that the eviction would require our kids to move not once, but twice, in the next four to five years.”

Anshal Purohit, co-president of the P.S. 150 Parent-Teacher Association, said, “it is our hope that we can find an equitable solution that allows the kids to stay in their current home at 334 Greenwich at least until a permanent home is built for them at Trinity Place. We, and local elected officials, were shocked to learn in October that the eviction would require our kids to move not once, but twice, in the next four to five years. While we understand the history of negotiations and the storyline as Vornado tells it, we are hoping to impress upon the owners that whatever discussions have taken place to date, evicting a school so as to require this for our children would be detrimental to their education and to the community as a whole.”

She further observed, “that this would happen so that an amenity could be built in the school’s place compounds the issue. Given that Vornado stands to gain significantly from commercializing our community long-term, it is our hope that they will do the right thing and work with us, the DOE, the SCA, and local elected officials, to find a mutually beneficial solution that allows our high-performing school to continue to thrive. They have the chance to act like a responsible member of the community and we feel strongly that their position requires them to do so.”

Tricia Joyce, chair of the CB1s’ Youth and Education Committee: “The expiration of this lease was not a surprise. We are still trying to understand how the renewal and or extension was neither addressed nor announced in a timely manner. The City has an obligation to residents to provide school seats for their children, and make the process functional and reliable. It is neither at the moment.”

Tricia Joyce, chair of the Youth and Education Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1), noted that, “the rally is important for several reasons. It shouldn’t be necessary, which is one of the reasons it’s important. But the expiration of this lease was not a surprise. We are still trying to understand how the renewal and or extension was neither addressed nor announced in a timely manner. We need to call attention to this as residents, so that we do not find ourselves in this position over and over again, due to a lack of proper planning. The city, the DOE and the SCA have an obligation to residents to provide school seats for their children, and make the process functional and reliable. It is neither at the moment.”

She added, “we also have to help our landlords realize that communities are built around schools. Communities support families. Families support landlords. And they make neighborhoods safe. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the impact P.S. 150 has had on the demand for apartments in that building. Turning their backs on the school in a time of need like this would be inexcusable.”

“My hopes are that the rally will help the DOE, SCA and Vornado see these things more clearly and come together to find a commonsense approach to striking a deal that will create the best possible outcome for the children and their families,” Ms. Joyce noted.

She concluded that, “P.S. 150 is a very special school, particularly because of its one-class-per-grade structure, and should not be co-located with other schools at all. Especially one that does not have adequate common space to share, which is the case with Peck Slip School. We believe that the Trinity school opening in four years will provide the best transition for this school, if in fact they most leave their present location at all.”

Paul Hovitz, vice chair of CB1 and co-chair of its Youth and Education Committee

Paul Hovitz, vice chair of CB1 and co-chair of its Youth and Education Committee, said, “it is not looking good. The hope is to keep the school in its present location until the Trinity space becomes available. Much of the difficulty in accomplishing this end lies in the very late notice to the parents, administration, elected officials and CB1. My real estate contacts say that a solution might have been possible last March, when DOE and SCA actually knew that the lease would not be renewed. Margaret Chin arranged for meetings between elected officials and parents, then realtors, then the DOE and SCA. Frankly, any possible compromise would have required all parties to be around the table at the same time. At this late date, the hope is that our elected officials can apply significant pressure on the parties to reach a compromise. Moving P.S. 150 to Peck will prove detrimental to both populations. This, of course, assumes that sufficient numbers of P.S. 150 families staying put. It is possible that so many will transfer out so that the school ceases to exist. And Peck Slip is already challenged for common space with its present population. Adding another school, with 180 more students, would create an impossible situation.”

Buxton Midyette, a P.S. 150 parent and longtime advocate for Lower Manhattan public schools, who is helping to organize today’s protest, said, “the purpose of our rally is to bring together our school, community leaders and elected officials to demonstrate the broad support for keeping P.S. 150 in in its current location.”

“I am still stunned that a public school is being evicted at all,” he continued. “There is little precedent I can find for doing this. The DOE was paying market rent and continues to offer that on a space that is less than prime real estate. It is not at street level and isolated up on a plaza. It is great for our school, but less than ideal for residential. Shareholders should question how Vornado and Stellar intend to get a higher return on the space.”

“P.S. 150 has been at its current location for decades,” he observed. “During that time, it has established itself as an integral part of the community through events like Taste of Tribeca, which raises funds for both P.S. 150 and P.S. 234, while also supporting and showcasing neighborhood restaurants. It also has distinguished itself as a high-performing school in a high-performing district. Displacing the school for a gym makes no sense.”

“The quality of our local public schools has been a major driver for growth Downtown,” Mr. Midyette reflected. “It is puzzling that Vornado wants to evict a school that actually represents the ultimate amenity any residential development could offer. Evicting P.S. 150 will alienate the Downtown community, a key target market for the units Vornado will offer.”

He added that Independence Plaza, the development that houses P.S. 150, “is not purely a private property. The owners are receiving millions of dollars per year in direct government subsidies. Maybe these payments to Vornado should be reviewed. A school has been in that building since Independence Plaza was constructed. We are hopeful that legal documents will be found that actually require a school to be located there.”

In the meantime, he concluded, “Vornado still has the opportunity to do the right thing and extend PS 150’s lease. We hope they will do this and allow the school to continue to thrive in its current location.”