“We have 800 kids going into that building,” said Tricia Joyce, the chair of the Youth and Education Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) said at the panel’s December 21 meeting, referring to the Broadway Educational Campus at 26 Broadway, which houses four separate public schools.
Ms. Joyce was explaining why New Street, the location of the primary entrance used by all four schools (on the back side of the building) needed to be closed periodically during school days.
“It’s not feasible to have traffic coming and going and those security barriers that stop vehicles popping up in the street at the same time,” Ms. Joyce said.
She added that New Street is already closed to most traffic, as part of the security perimeter established around the New York Stock Exchange after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but dozens of construction vehicles and delivery trucks still traverse the narrow alley each day.
Ms. Joyce explained that CB1 is asking not for a complete bans of vehicles of new Street, but only that, “it be closed three times a day for an hour apiece,” corresponding with the start of school, lunch time, and dismissal.
“We are making sure that at those times, everyone is very aware, and not planning to travel up New Street, so that there won’t be injuries to these kids,” she said. “Right now, we have people doing demolition within six inches of students’ faces, with questionable substances. We have all kinds of hazardous things happening on New Street.”
A resolution enacted at CB1’s December meeting notes that, “there has been a substantial increase in thru-traffic and construction activity—all activating the Active Vehicle Barriers to rise and fall again and again—since the beginning of the school year, forcing students, parents, faculty, and staff to dodge large forklifts, heavy-duty flatbed trucks, drivers, and hard-hats making deliveries to a nearby office building just to get access to the schools.”
The same measure notes that, “this constant activity, and the resulting scarcity of space, have caused conflict on two occasions when workers have verbally attacked students as young as ten years old,” and calls upon the City’s Department of Transportation to, “close New Street to vehicles during the hours of 7:30 to 8:30am for student arrival, 11:30am to 12:30pm [for] lunch, and 2:15p to 3:30 pm for dismissal, for the safety of their students, families, staff, and faculty.”
Matthew Fenton
