While Julie Menin currently serves as the chair of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan, she is eyeing a new, as yet officially unnamed political office in 2013. Last week, Menin held two fundraisers in Soho: one at the home of philanthropist Henry Buhl and another at SoHo Alliance President Sean Sweeney’s abode. This series shows the scene at the Buhl gathering, which included many noted guests including Tribeca Film Festival founders founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro.

—Photos by Colin kelly  |  Text by staff

Maggie Siena is taking the job as the new Peck Slip School’s principal starting in fall 2012, when it opens at its incubation site at the Tweed Courthouse. But Siena is no stranger to Lower Manhattan schools—she has been the principal at P.S. 150 on Greenwich Street for the last six years. In her new post, Siena will not only be responsible for a school in its earliest stages, she will be transitioning the students and staff from the incubation site to the brand-new school building in 2014.
Siena sat down with Our Town Downtown to discuss what she has done at P.S. 150, what she’ll miss the most and what she looks forward to at Peck Slip.

Why did you decide to leave P.S. 150 after six years?
It really wasn’t a matter of deciding to leave; it was a matter of moving on to another project. As a matter of fact, if it would have come my way in another two years, I would have done it then and been just as happy. It was just an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

What were some of your biggest challenges and accomplishments as P.S. 150’s principal?
It’s always challenging to come into a school that is functioning really well and has a strong school culture and be the new leader. You want to make sure you keep the very best qualities of a school when you step into those leadership shoes. In many ways, that was my biggest challenge. For accomplishments, it’s really hard to say because a school is such a collaborative project. I am really proud to have worked with the staff here to build a strong social and emotional curriculum.
One thing I feel personally proud of is the work to improve the facilities of the school. It was pretty clear that windows needed to be replaced—they were Plexiglas and from the 1970s—and it took a lot of work with a lot of different people. Getting Internet connectivity improved, getting a door put into the media center, renovating the music center—all over the last six years. Everything takes a lot of time and a lot of determination and that’s something I learned here.

What will be the most difficult part about leaving P.S. 150?
Because this is such a small school, I get to know members of the community very well and get to know the kids, their brothers and sisters, families and babysitters. I’m impressed how well our staff knows the community. It’s a special thing to watch kids growing from kindergarten to 5th grade.
One of the kids is writing a persuasive piece on why I shouldn’t leave P.S. 150. Other kids have given me hugs and expressed that they are sad I am leaving. But children are resilient and I know they’ll be just fine here.

What are some of your plans for the Peck Slip School?
I want to bring to Peck Slip a lot of things we’ve done [at P.S. 150]. Integrating arts with the curriculum, having a lot of strong work around content, really learning about things, in addition to learning how to read and do math. Integrating sustainability education in the curriculum so kids are learning about their role in the environment. We do everything with the arts and integrate our studies with the visual arts, dance, music and theater.
Overcrowded schools in Lower Manhattan have become a big problem, leading to new schools, such as Peck Slip, being constructed, along with rezoning and kindergarten wait lists. Some expect there will be wait lists for Peck Slip before it opens its doors. How will you handle that?
I don’t know how privy I am to the controversy around Peck Slip. I am sure it is challenging for parents to not have the opportunity to attend beautiful new schools, such as P.S. 276.
I can say that the space at Tweed is really wonderful; it is a really good place to have a school. It is really magnificent; it has a beautiful area for children to play, a nice cafeteria and gorgeous, really large rooms. We’ll be in a good place for the next three years, and after that we get to have a new building. In terms of Peck Slip wait lists, it is something to work on with enrollment and work closely with the DOE and neighboring schools.
I was involved in the renovation of Tweed and was the principal of the City Hall Academy for a year and a half. I’m familiar with the space and I have already run a small school without fancy facilities. At P.S. 150, we have an award-winning track team, but we don’t have a gym. We have stage performances, but we don’t have an auditorium. All of it is because of a great PTA and a great staff.

Since Peck Slip will be located at the Tweed Courthouse for the next few years, how will you handle not having a cafeteria, gym or auditorium in your building?
First of all, there is a cafeteria, they just have a warming kitchen, not where food is prepared. But it is delivered to the school and prepared to be served by the staff—it is the same as hot lunch and I’ve seen it myself. We don’t have a cafeteria here at P.S. 150 and the kids eat in the classrooms.
For gym, in the first couple of years there will be a lot of space. You’ve got to see the four corner rooms in the Tweed Courthouse, we’ll be able to do some big activities and there’s a beautiful space outside at City Hall Park, which is what we’ve done at P.S. 150; have physical education classes outside. P.S. 150’s track team meets once a week, before or after school, and since we don’t have a gym they run outside. When the weather is poor, they run up and down the stairs here.
In terms of an auditorium, we’ll have performance areas, and the classrooms are pretty humongous—they’re actually pretty big for that. If we do decide to do something on a stage level, we’ll find a friend to hold something. At P.S. 150, we’ve used the stage at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center—that’s where we do the end-of-year arts festival, which is an original performance that a music teacher writes with the children.

—Lillian Rizzo

By Lillian Rizzo and Marissa Maier, with additional reporting by Andrew Rice

A few months ago, a NYPD officer stood in the middle of the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets, out of breath and sweating. Occasionally, a driver would roll down his window to shout at him.

“Tell this guy to move up already!” said an angry blonde woman in a green Jeep. In the middle of the intersection, with three honking cars behind her, she was attempting to turn toward the Williamsburg Bridge before the light changed. This isn’t just typical for a Saturday afternoon—it is typical for any time at this intersection just before the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Currently labeled one of the deadliest thoroughfares in the city, Delancey Street cuts through the Lower East Side. It is known for a recent string of fatalities and over 500 car accidents in the last 12 years. The chaos, which usually ensues on weekends and at rush hour, has built up over the years as more people populate the Lower East Side and more cyclists use the bridge.

The most recent accident to occur on Delancey Street claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl. The NYPD reported that Dashane Santana was killed Friday, Jan. 13, after being hit by a minivan. Police say the girl was crossing the street with a group of friends near the intersection of Delancey and Clinton streets, close to where the road feeds into the Williamsburg Bridge, when a 2006 Toyota minivan struck her.

Gothamist interviewed one witness who was with the girl, who reported that the group was crossing the street when the light changed quickly and Santana tripped.

NYPD officer Michael DeBonis revealed that Santana attended M.S. 345 CASTLE Middle School, located on nearby Henry Street, but was said to have had dreams of applying to the Juilliard School. She reportedly lived in the East Village’s Jacob Riis II Houses.

The driver of the vehicle, DeBonis continued, was a 58-year-old Asian man who remained on the scene after the accident. While the investigation is ongoing, police at this point are saying they don’t suspect criminal charges will be issued.
The 911 call came in at around 2:36 p.m., but FDNY representative Jim Long said Santana was already in cardiac arrest and wasn’t breathing by the time medical personnel arrived at the scene. She was rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Working on Solutions
“Today, an unspeakable tragedy happened on Delancey Street. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the young victim. We must continue to work together as a community to make Delancey Street safer for everyone,” said New York State Sen. Dan Squadron in a statement Friday, Jan 13.

Santana’s death joins a string of other recent fatalities. In May 2011, a female pedestrian was crushed to death by a private sanitation truck in the crosswalk at Delancey and Essex streets. Months later, in August, a bicyclist was hit and killed by a semi-trailer at Delancey and Chrystie streets. The previous year, a pedestrian and a cyclist were both killed in vehicular accidents on the thoroughfare.

These fatalities spurred local politicians, Community Board 3, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the NYPD to put together the Delancey Street Safety Working Group in September of last year.

“I believe it is one of the more dangerous streets in the five boroughs,” said Squadron at the time.

According to numbers obtained from the DOT, from 2005 to 2009 there were an average of nine pedestrian injuries per year just at the intersection of Essex and Delancey streets. Between 2005 and 2010, there were two deaths at the intersection.

Following the death in August, the DOT added countdown signals for the crosswalks. Barricades at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge have also been added to guide cyclists away from traffic and toward the divider, where they can cross to a side street.

“The crosswalk [signals] aren’t that long,” said Michelle Brick, 32, a volunteer for CreativeTime, who stood near Essex Street handing out fliers last fall. “When I was crossing, it wasn’t enough time.”

The countdown clocks allow pedestrians roughly 30 seconds to cross before the light turns red, which doesn’t give most people enough time to walk across. Many people stop at the median traffic island.

Lengthening crossing times and medians is one issue the Working Group hopes to tackle in the near future, reported Squadron’s office, which has been organizing the meetings. The group met in September, October and November of last year and will meet again in the coming weeks to discuss creating turning restrictions, implementing stop lines and configuring a new solution for bike traffic.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who also sits on the group, outlined a few recommendations in a recent letter to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan: “The Department of Transportation should undertake a comprehensive safety study and recommend improvements that would enhance protections for pedestrians at several intersections. In the meantime…I am asking that the DOT post pedestrian managers at the most dangerous intersections of Delancey.

“At the very least, managers should be required during school hours and other peak periods,” the letter continued. “In addition to pedestrian managers, I ask that the green light for pedestrians be extended so that people have more time to safely cross.”

For their part, DOT spokesman Scott Gastel mentioned in an email that in addition to the countdown signals, the DOT has increased pedestrian crossing times at four intersections and is working on a project to extend the median areas at two intersections. He added that the DOT will continue to address issues at this corridor.

Kelly Magee, communications director for City Council Member Margaret Chin, said the issue of safety on Delancey Street highlights a broader issue of pedestrian use outpacing changes to the layout of the street. She noted that heavy traffic can be found on both sides of Downtown Manhattan at key times near the Holland Tunnel and the Williamsburg Bridge. She added that there is also parking on Delancey Street, which hinders visibility when turning onto the thoroughfare.

For some locals, improvements to Delancey Street can’t come soon enough. R. Hughes, a 21-year resident of Clinton Street and mother of three, witnessed a fatality last year.

“The lights here are too short. Even now, after getting halfway across the street, we only have three seconds left,” said Hughes while crossing Delancey.

Waitress Cindy Chung, who has worked at the Olympic Restaurant, at 115 Delancey St., for 35 years, calls the stretch of road between Essex Street and the Williamsburg Bridge a “death street.”

While the NYPD hasn’t disclosed the exact cause of the accident that killed Santan, Sal Medina, 54, who has lived in the Lower East Side for over 40 years and owns the Medina Newsstand at the corner of Clinton and Delancey streets, blames the fast traffic and the short pedestrian crossing lights for the fatal accident. He recounted a heartbreaking scene from Friday afternoon. “I heard this loud crack as the minivan hit her,” he said. “And then I saw her lying unconscious with her shoes knocked off in the street.”

Parts of this article are taken from a previous Our Town Downtown piece, “Working Group Formed to Find Safety Measures for Delancey “, also by Lillian Rizzo.

Delancey Street, often referred to as one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in New York City, was the site of a fatal accident on Friday, Jan. 13. NYPD report that a 12-year-old African American girl was killed by a minivan in the early afternoon. Police say the girl was crossing the street with a group of friends near the Williamsburg Bridge when a 2006 Toyota minivan hit her. Officer Michael DeBonis revealed that the girl attended Castle Rock Middle School, which is located on nearby Henry Street.

Photo Caption: Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge. The thoroughfare has been the site of several accidents including one on Friday, Jan. 13, in which a 12-year-old middle school student was killed. (Photo courtesy of Googlemaps).

The driver of the vehicle, Officer DeBonis continued, was a 58-year-old Asian man and after the accident he remained on the scene. While the investigation is ongoing, at this point police don’t suspect criminal charges will be made.
The 911 call came in at around 2:36, but FDNY representative Jim Long says the girl was already in cardiac arrest and wasn’t breathing by the time medical personnel arrived at the scene. She was rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Currently labeled one of the “deadliest” streets in the city, Delancey Street is a thoroughfare that cuts through the Lower East Side and is now known for recent fatalities and over 500 car accidents in the last 12 years. The chaos, which usually ensues on weekends and rush hours, has built up over the years as more people populate the Lower East Side and more cyclists use the Williamsburg Bridge.
In May 2011 a pedestrian was crushed to death by a private sanitation truck at the crosswalk of Delancey and Essex Streets. Months later in August, a bicyclist was hit and killed by a semi-tractor trailer at Delancey and Chrystie Streets.
“Today an unspeakable tragedy happened on Delancey Street. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the young victim. We must continue to work together as a community to make Delancey Street safer for everyone,” said New York State Senator Dan Squadron of this most recent tragedy.
Last fall, Community Board 3, the Department of Transportation and the Police Department put together a Delancey Street Safety Working Group to work on both short and long term improvements.
“I believe it is one of the more dangerous streets in the five boroughs,” said Squadron at the time.
According to numbers obtained from the DOT, from 2005 to 2009 there was an average of nine pedestrian injuries per year just at the intersection of Essex and Delancey. From 2005 to 2010 there were two deaths at the intersection.
While countdown clocks were installed at certain points on Delancey Street last year, it seems more measures might be needed. Gothamist interviewed one witness who was with the girl. The witness reported that the group was crossing the street when the light changed quickly and the girl accidentally tripped.

By Lillian Rizzo

Since October, parents have stood in school auditoriums, before panels and projectors, asking for the answer to a simple question: What school will their children attend in the fall?

These parents from Lower Manhattan neighborhoods have attended meetings at which the District 2 Community Education Council (CEC) and the city Department of Education (DOE) tried to figure out the best way to rezone neighborhoods for new schools being built to prevent wait lists. After three proposals and endless meetings where parents, community board members and local politicians voiced their opinions, a rezoning proposal was finally approved unanimously by the CEC on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

Although the new lines have been drawn and parents from Tribeca and the Financial District know where their children will attend school in September 2012, few are happy about the resolution. The discussion constantly circled back to the same theme at every meeting and conversation: Lower Manhattan needs more schools.

With so many people moving into Lower Manhattan, schools in the area have filled up over the past few years, creating wait lists for kindergarten classes. In response, the DOE has opened two new schools, P.S. 276 in Battery Park City and P.S. 397, the Spruce Street School, and plans to open two more by 2015. But the CEC argues this still isn’t enough—once the new schools open, they will most likely have wait lists themselves.

However, without new schools, redrawing neighborhood lines wouldn’t be necessary. When parents hear the word “rezoning,” especially those with younger children about to attend pre-kindergarten or kindergarten, they are automatically frightened, which usually leads to fury.

“Last time, I was told we were being rezoned to P.S. 1; tonight, we’re rezoned to P.S. 397. We’re very helpless going through this process,” said Tom Ryan, a Tribeca parent, at the Nov. 28 meeting. “I ask you to represent us and do the right job by us.”

The DOE must rezone an area when new schools are created; otherwise, there would be no designated children to fill the seats. In the process of rezoning, existing schools come into question, especially those that are either overcrowded or under capacity. Neighborhood lines are redrawn in order to shift children to form balanced schools where classrooms aren’t overcrowded.

“Rezoning is something you have to do when a new school opens, unless you make it a school without a zone—an ‘option’ or Magnet school,” said Shino Tanikawa, CEC 2 president. “But because of overcrowding in Dist245rict 2 that’s not a smart option. Now we need schools.”

Since October, the DOE and CEC have been faced with rezoning Lower Manhattan, primarily because the Peck Slip School, which is set to open in 2015, doesn’t have a zone. Before the building at 1 Peck Slip opens, two classes per grade will be incubated at the Tweed Courthouse, which usually holds incubator classes and offices for the DOE. Resolution 47, the CEC’s name for the approved rezoning proposal, created a new zone for Peck Slip and slightly changed the zones for P.S. 397 and P.S. 89. The P.S. 234 zone in Tribeca was kept the same due to loud outcry from parents.

But now some parents are left questioning what this means for their children and their futures. Many people moved into certain neighborhoods specifically for the school it offered, and are now finding their children will attend different schools.

“Changing every year is not a good way to manage things because people live and thrive on children,” said Amy Ellen Schwartz, New York University professor and director of the Institute of Education and Social Policy. “It matters where you’re going to send your kid, the school they go to, the after-school program.”

Schwartz referred to the last rezoning of Lower Manhattan, which took place in 2009 to create zones for P.S. 397 and P.S. 276. That process was a bit different than the one this year, Tanikawa admitted. Although the three-month proposal hearings were tiring and felt drawn out, she said the recent process went smoothly compared to 2009 when the DOE presented more than one proposal at a time for rezoning options.

“One thing we learned is when you present multiple proposals at one time…it divides the community,” said Tanikawa. “That’s exactly what happened in 2009. We had two proposals and two camps of supporters for them, and it turned into parents against parents. It was really awful.”

This year the DOE only presented one proposal in October and continued to edit it based on CEC and parents’ remarks. A major issue was the zone for P.S. 234, a school that is known for its lengthy wait lists. Over the past two years, the principal was able to add classrooms to the kindergartens, preventing overcrowding but delaying the opening of a middle school in the building. Currently, 6th-grade classrooms are being used for kindergartens, and the date of the junior high school opening continues to get pushed back. P.S. 234 has been slated for many years to expand to 6th grade (it currently goes to 5th grade.) Due to the need for kindergarten space, however, the school has been unable to incorporate 6th grade levels.

While the problems of rezoning, overcrowded classrooms and not enough seats have been plaguing Lower Manhattan community boards and the District 2 CEC since just before 2009, the problem actually started on 9/11. Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the city feared people would leave Lower Manhattan and buyers and renters wouldn’t want to move into the area. As the city rebuilt itself emotionally and physically, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged to reinvigorate Lower Manhattan and assured citizens it was a prime place to live.

Millions of dollars were infused into the area, reviving businesses that were decimated on 9/11. There was also a push in building development outside of the Freedom Tower, with numerous apartment buildings springing up in the area. Within a few years, around 2005, the area was revived and became a hot spot for families to start their lives.

“As we look back on the past decade, and as the picture of what has happened here comes into sharper focus, I believe the rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history,” said Bloomberg in a Sept 6. speech at an event sponsored by the Asssociation for a Better New York, days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

According to 2010 U.S. Census data, the area of Downtown Manhattan that comprises Community Board 1 grew by 77.2 percent since 2001, a remarkable rate. The population and number of apartments have more than doubled since the attacks.

Bloomberg pointed out that the city invested more than $260 million in park construction and expansion. He also pointed to the 19 new hotels, the millions of dollars put into apartment building expansion and the reconstructed streets and pipelines in the neighborhood, as well as the two new schools built and more than 4,000 seats added for incoming families.

But this, to some, doesn’t seem to be enough. Eric Greenleaf, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a P.S. 234 parent, has done extensive research on Lower Manhattan communities and projected the number of children that will enter its schools by 2015. His numbers are drastically different from the DOE projections, another problem that he and the CEC and community board members continue to point out.

“The worst thing we’ve done is not gotten the scent of this problem a while ago,” said Schwartz. “Probably this is not what anyone had hoped for.”

This year, Downtown took in about 440 new students. Greenleaf projects that by 2015, when Peck Slip opens its doors, there will be about 600 incoming students, if not more. Greenleaf came to this conclusion by taking a count of the number of children born in the area in 2009, the incoming kindergartners of 2015, which increased by 46 percent.

“Even as we talk about zones for existing schools, in the background there is the worry that these schools aren’t enough. Zones don’t create seats, they’re not a substitute for the schools we need,” said Greenleaf. “People begin to worry. If these schools aren’t enough, where will the kids go?”

Greenleaf, Tanikawa, CEC members and parents alike all seem to agree, and reiterated that the DOE doesn’t grasp the situation they are faced with. Tanikawa has repeatedly suggested that developers should be held accountable. “When they build residential buildings, they should kick in an education fund that leads to building schools,” she said at the Dec. 14 meeting. Tanikawa and Greenleaf both wondered if the city had mapped out every possible need for Lower Manhattan when revitalizing it.

“When [the DOE] says,‘We built all of these schools, why build more?’ they’re saying to all of these Downtown families, ‘You moved here because we asked you to. Now move out,’” said Greenleaf.

When DOE representatives and Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who held a town hall meeting Dec. 7 with the CEC, are confronted with the call for more schools, they point to the two that were just opened and to the Peck Slip School and Foundling Hospital School, which will open in a few years. The problem still remains, however, that the longer it takes to build and open these schools, the more wait lists and overcrowding occurs, forcing people back to the rezoning board.

“For five to six years now, parents’number-one concern is the more kids we have, the more schools we will need,” said Michael Markowitz to Walcott at the Dec. 7 meeting. “I completely reject rezoning as a tool to rebalance areas.”

[photosmash id=42 layout='gallery_view_layout']

Nearly three months after the Department of Education presented rezoning proposals for lower Manhattan, the Community Education Council 2 (CEC) announced on Wednesday, Dec. 14, they approve of the latest proposal.

Caption: The latest zoning map. (Graphic courtesy of the Department of Education).

At a public meeting held at the NYC Lab School on West 17 Street, the CEC presented District 2 residents with Resolution #47, which was presented by the DOE on Nov. 28. The proposal creates a new zone for the Peck Slip School, which will be opened in 2015 and the school will be incubated at the Tweed Courthouse starting in 2012. The latest rezoning plan will also slightly change the zones for P.S. 89 and P.S. 276, and will not change the zone for P.S. 234, the Spruce Street School that has grappled with wait lists the past few years.

After the CEC approved the plan, the panel did note its unhappiness to the DOE’s response to increasing wait lists with rezoning.

“Rezoning doesn’t build seats. Tushies don’t need zones, they need seats,” said CEC member Michael Markowitz.

In the resolution, the CEC notes lower Manhattan is in need of more schools to seat incoming students in growing neighborhoods such as the Financial District and Tribeca. It also calls for a third incubator class to be added to Tweed for the future Peck Slip School.

Almost every day, Providencia Rosario walks a short distance from her home in the Vladeck Houses on the Lower East Side to eat lunch and dinner and hang out with some friends. Her routine is generally the same. Rosario spends her time at the Henry Street Settlement Good Companions Senior Center, located in the Vladeck Houses. The center is open to anyone over 60 and provides three hot meals and activities daily.“I come here almost every day; otherwise I would be home alone and I’d feel lonely,” said Rosario, 82.
She attends one of the seven senior centers on the Lower East Side, all of which were threatened last year with either budget cuts or having their doors shuttered permanently.

Every year, the state budget must be passed by June 30. Recently, this has become a task for New York’s governor, due to the troubled economy. Cuts have to be made, and often the Title XX fund, which provides the Department for the Aging with money for services such as senior centers, is targeted. To save their centers, senior citizens sign petitions and write thousands of letters to the governor while local politicians fight for the seniors’ interests.

“This year, more seniors in my district wrote to Governor Cuomo than any other council district,” said Council Member Margaret Chin of District 1 in Lower Manhattan in a press release. “This budget dance has to stop. It is unfair to our seniors and it is unfair to our communities.”

For the last two years, the executive budget has proposed a $25 million cut to Title XX, which could shut down 105 of the city’s 256 senior centers.

This year, seniors and politicians are preparing early for any proposed cuts to senior citizens’ programs. Thursday, Dec. 1, council members met in front of City Hall to make a preemptive statement to the governor, demanding he stop trying to tap into senior citizen funding. The city also asked seniors to write in, and they have received over 15,000 letters.

“We’ve just asked Governor Cuomo not to waste our time, but save our time to do meaningful things,” said Po-Ling Ng, assistant executive director of the CPC senior center at 168 Grand St. “Our seniors and staff worry too much. It’s really abuse—we don’t feel secure in our senior life anymore.”

Even before City Council and seniors called on the governor to prevent budget cuts this month, Ng attended State Sen. Daniel Squadron’s town hall meeting in November to bring up Title XX. She praised the state senator for standing up for senior citizens last year and asked him to do the same this year.

“Year after year, Title XX and senior centers are the first programs on the budget chopping block,” said Squadron in an email. “We’ve been successful in protecting Title XX in the past, but this year, senior centers  cannot be put at risk. Some programs should simply never be on the chopping block in the first place.”

Manhattan has 60 senior centers, with 11 below 14th Street.

“The Department for the Aging funds nearly a third of its senior center budget through the use of Title XX discretionary funds,” said Department for the Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli in a statement. “Any loss of state funding would impact seniors profoundly—we would potentially have to close upward of 105 senior centers across the five boroughs.”

Not only are senior centers worried about being closed, they also fear any more funding cuts. Due to the economy, they have already been forced to keep tighter budgets, sacrificing activities and programs that keep seniors active. Center directors also point out that fundraising isn’t easy in an ailing economy, either.

“The Title XX money not coming through would be devastating for senior centers, ours included,” said David Garza, executive director of Henry Street’s senior center. “Alternative sources of funding are just nonexistent in this particular economic climate.”

Henry Street’s senior center is usually packed during lunch and dinnertime, and when the seniors aren’t eating they are taking part in activities such as bingo, tai chi and computer classes.

“I come here to hang out with my buddies,” said Charles Garcia, 64, at Henry Street. He often plays pool or dominoes with his friends, and also stops by for lunch or dinner. “It’s like a boys club, but for old guys.”

Following weeks of parents, community board and Community Education Council (CEC) District 2 members voicing their distress over the latest rezoning plan for Lower Manhattan, the Department of Education (DOE) presented a new plan on Monday, Nov. 28. “We are presenting one new proposal…and we will keep it simple,” said Elizabeth Rose of the DOE at Monday’s meeting.

Just weeks earlier, on Nov. 7, the DOE presented a rezoning proposal that displeased many community members and led to its rejection by the CEC less than two weeks later. In the hopes of pleasing the council, community board members and residents, the DOE this time introduced a school map that gave in to the demands they heard after the last rezoning meeting.

According to the DOE, the latest plan creates a zone for the new Peck Slip School scheduled to open in 2015. Until Peck Slip opens, children will attend classes at an incubation site at the Tweed Courthouse. The zones for P.S. 89 on Warren Street and P.S. 276 in Battery Park City will change, along with a portion of the P.S. 397 (Spruce Street School) zone. The P.S. 234 zone in Tribeca will not be touched, unlike in the last proposal. “P.S. 234 will likely have a waitlist because there won’t be any change to the zone,” said Rose.

This time, all parties seemed happier with the proposal, expressing concern only over the need for more schools in Lower Manhattan to fully solve the problem.

“I appreciate this new proposal and consider it much better than the previous one,” said Einar Westerland, a P.S. 234 parent from Tribeca. “Most of us move to certain neighborhoods to send our kids to certain schools.”

The CEC had criticized the earlier proposal because it sent children from Tribeca to P.S. 1 in Chinatown, creating divides that would mean children within the same apartment buildings or on the same streets would be in different zones.

“Families felt the proposal was breaking up their neighborhoods, and child safety and transportation issues were also involved,” said Eric Goldberg of the CEC before the DOE presented their proposal. “Based on that feedback, we told the DOE we had to focus on creating a zone for Peck Slip and no other aspects.”

At the meeting, Lower Manhattan parents seemed content with the proposal but still unhappy with the direction in which their local schools were headed as neighborhood populations increase.

“Being on the waitlist is so painful, especially for the child,” said Christine Brogan. Her son was zoned for P.S. 234 but was waitlisted and eventually sent to P.S. 130 on Baxter Street in Chinatown. When room finally opened up in P.S 234, he transferred there. “Waitlists affect the entire district,” she added.

Like Brogan, many parents asked the DOE to simply create more schools. It was the common theme of the night, what many believe will be the only solution to this problem. CEC and community board members already predict new schools will have waitlists before they even officially open their doors.

“We opened a new school last year,” said Rose, of the Spruce Street School. “We have been opening a lot of schools in District 2 in the last few years.” Rose also pointed to Peck Slip, the Foundling School and P.S. 281 at 35th Street and First Avenue, which are to be opened. District 2, which also reaches to the Upper East Side, will have another new school open there in the next few years.

As with the previous proposal, the CEC has until Dec. 14 to approve this latest plan so pre-registration for kindergarten classes in late January won’t be disrupted. Since the entire CEC wasn’t present at Monday night’s meeting, they could not make a joint statement on how they felt about it.

However, Shino Tanikawa, CEC president, said after the meeting she was “personally happier with some aspects of the new proposal.” Goldberg also felt the DOE had heard parents’ feedback and incorporated it into this proposal.

“Even with the Peck Slip School, there are not enough seats,” said Tanikawa. “I still wish the DOE would develop better projections.”

There is still the remaining problem of the Southbridge Towers, cooperative buildings in Tribeca. Similar to the previous plan, Southbridge could be divided between the Peck Slip and Spruce Street schools.

“This will basically cut our community in half,” said Danielle Bello, a Southbridge resident. “I urge the CEC to keep our kids zoned for Spruce Street. By forcing kids to be included at Peck Slip, you’re basically slicing and dicing this community up.”

The CEC plans to vote on the proposal at its Dec. 14 meeting.

By Lillian Rizzo

Downtown Manhattan residents, like those in most other neighborhoods, worry about slow public transportation service, excessive noise and funding cuts to vital government programs. But Lower East Side dwellers also have a major demand for their diverse city streets: Don’t let gentrification change them anymore.

At State Sen. Daniel Squadron’s last town hall meeting, held at the BRC Senior Center at 30 Delancey St. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, he listened to the concerns and complaints of his constituents from the LES, Chinatown and the East Village. The meeting came a week after his first town hall at the Southbridge Community Houses, 90 Beekman St., to address the needs of the residents of Lower Manhattan, Tribeca, Little Italy, Battery Park City, Financial District and Soho.

Topics raised at the town hall were varied, but the sentiment that Downtown Manhattan neighborhoods are changing too much was shared by many. When it came to gentrification, the Bowery and LES were pinpointed. An overall increase in traffic and congestion was also targeted in those areas, as well as Tribeca and the East Village.

The concerns about the Bowery spanned from making buildings on the east side of the street landmarks, halting the building of hotels, increased congestion and environmental matters. Most were from LES residents, while others were from neighboring areas that also use the thoroughfare.

“They are building enormous hotels on the Bowery, which use a ton of water,” said Michele Campo, a LES resident. “How many hotels do we need in this city? They put up more and it hurts small businesses.”

Not far from the Bowery, the Bialystoker Nursing Home, the oldest nursing home in the area at 228 E. Broadway, was also mentioned. On Nov. 1, Bialystoker was forced to close its doors and send senior citizens to affordable assisted living homes in the outer boroughs. While residents within and outside of the home fought to keep Bialystoker open, the owner faced a tough financial situation. Even though residents are still upset its doors are closed, they are even more concerned about will happen to the building now that it is up for sale.

“Our immediate goal is saving this building—very few [like it] remain in the LES,” said one neighborhood resident. Bialystoker is an art deco building built in the 1920s, and was home to many Holocaust survivors throughout the years.

“That nursing home was a terrible loss to the community, and it would be a terrible loss to lose the building,” said Squadron. “I am trying to make a strong case on advocating to make the building a landmark.”

Squadron noted that he had “urged” the state attorney general to look closely at Biaylstoker’s chance of becoming a landmark.

The same resident also brought up buildings on the east side of the Bowery and how they were unprotected from demolition or defacing, unlike those on the west side. He hoped to “ward off gentrification.” Squadron said he had supported a previous form of the proposal to create landmarks on the Bowery’s east side, which has already been sent to City Planning.

As the meeting continued, gentrification managed to creep into the conversation, though not always in the form of saving the neighborhoods’ original appearance. Many residents targeted streets crowded with cars and bicycles.

“Bicycles have made the streets more dangerous for pedestrians; there is no law enforcement for them,” said Michael O’Connor of the East Village.

O’Connor said that as his neighborhood’s residents change, so do their modes of transportation. An increased number of cyclists have appeared in the East Village, speeding through red lights and even riding on the sidewalks, he told Squadron.

Squadron responded with hope that law enforcement will become stricter with bicyclists, especially those who ride on the sidewalk.

Following O’Connor’s unruly bicyclist concerns, a Little Italy resident raised the issue of traffic leading to the Holland Tunnel in Tribeca making the streets more dangerous.

“My concern is about suburban drivers; the other night, right off of Varick Street, I actually thanked traffic officers for being there,” said Elliot Hurwitt of Little Italy following the meeting. During the meeting, he shared the story of a close call, when a driver almost hit him while illegally switching lanes. Many residents agreed with Hurwitt and shared similar concerns about Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Department of Education rolled out a new rezoning plan last week in the hope of settling the growing problem of overcrowded schools in Lower Manhattan and increasing waitlists for kindergartens.

But it looks like the DOE is the only one that is content with this new rezoning plan.

While the DOE looks to new zones as the answer, parents, elected officials and Community Board 1 see only one real resolution to this problem: Open more schools as the population increases.

“I have a lot of heartache because a lot of parents say they don’t want zoning to be a rebalancing tool,” said Michael Markowitz, council member of the Community Education Council for District 2, at the DOE’s Nov. 8 rezoning proposal meeting. At the meeting, the DOE’s Elizabeth Rose presented its latest proposal, outlining new zones for children in Tribeca, the West Village, Chinatown and the Financial District.

The rezoning will only go into effect if the CEC approves it within the next 45 days, though CEC and CB1 members think there is a possibility they may extend this time limit for the sake of pending amendments.

The latest proposal looks to relieve pressure on P.S. 234 on Greenwich Street, a school that grapples with waitlists yearly. It also creates a smaller zone for the Peck Slip School, set to open in 2015, and changes the zone of the newly opened Spruce Street School, P.S. 397.

According to the latest plan, a new zone for the upcoming school at the Foundling Hospital location in Chelsea will be instituted when it is opened in 2014, along with one for the Peck Slip School. Another major challenge was a split of Tribeca’s zones—under the proposal, children who live east of West Broadway and north of Murray Street will be zoned for P.S. 1, in Chinatown. These children are currently zoned for P.S. 234 and P.S. 397.

“We asked the DOE to leave the P.S. 234 zone the way it was and they decided to take the northeast piece and send it to P.S. 1, which doesn’t have room—and parents don’t want to go there anyway,” said Paul Hovitz, co-chair of CB1’s Youth Committee.

“This plan brings zones in line with what the community needs and what schools can provide, and addresses the feedback we heard during our last proposal,” said DOE spokesman Frank Thomas.

There was widespread criticism, especially from the CEC and CB1, about the Peck Slip School, which just received an increase of seats. Before children can enter the school itself at 1 Peck Slip, they are attending classes at its incubation site at the Tweed Courthouse.

Currently, Tweed offers room for two classrooms per grade, though when Peck Slip opens there will actually be four classrooms per grade. A shared request from the CEC and CB1 was made to increase the incubation classes to three per grade and tackle exactly what a few rooms on the bottom floor of Tweed are being used for.

“Even if it means putting staff in a trailer for a year, I want to see it happen,” said Shino Tanikawa, CEC president. “We gained another section in the school but the zone is smaller.”

Until Peck Slip is opened, students attending classes at Tweed will automatically be transferred into the specified zone for Peck Slip, if the plan is approved. But Rose argues that increasing the number of classes in Tweed doesn’t work—there’s not enough room and trailers cost too much money for a temporary expense.

The last time the DOE rezoned Lower Manhattan due to its increasing population was three years ago. While parents, community members and the CEC bickered with the DOE over the flaws of its plan, there was really only one solution they all agreed on: open more schools to relieve the pressure instead of shuffling kids around neighborhoods.

“Don’t split up communities like parts of northern Tribeca” said Julie Menin, president of CB1, at the CEC meeting. “Additional schools in the Community Board 1 district are needed for additional growth in areas.”

“They basically rezone to respond to new schools,” said Hovitz following the meeting. Currently, Hovitz and CB1 are coming up with amendments to the rezoning plan, although he is unsure if they will actually be used if requested by the CEC. The DOE has not responded on whether amendments to the proposal are possible.

Photo: The proposed rezoning from the Dept. of Education.