By Helaina Hovitz

If a hurricane didn’t kill this community’s spirit, a little rain wasn’t going to, either.

Determined to go on with the show — a show that ran past the event’s scheduled 9 p.m. end time — the first annual Spirit Festival commenced as planned on Thursday, April 18, on Front Street between Beekman and Fulton Streets, raising funds and moral support for South Street Seaport area businesses affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Speaker Sheldon Silver presents a State Assembly proclamation to Ashley Duncan, president of the Spruce Street School PTA, along with a group of students.
Photo by Brook Altman

During the superstorm, the East River rushed through the storefronts of bars, shops and restaurants around the Seaport, tearing rooms apart and sending refrigerators floating down Front Street. Things went from bad to worse when 13 businesses around Front Street and Peck Slip operating under a lease with The Durst Organization were told that they couldn’t open for at least another six to eight months because Durst wanted to replace the geothermal unit (a boiler system), instead of just fixing it. While some business owners immediately picked up and left, others immediately reopened, and many are still waiting to do so.

Shortly after the storm, the ones who’ve made the decision to stay formed the Seaport Neighborhood Merchants’ Association, sponsored by the Downtown Alliance and initiated with the help of the NYC Department of Small Business Services. Their goal: to promote their businesses and let everyone know “they’re still here.”

On Thursday, the wet winds caused a slow-moving start to the festival, but people still showed; before long, the streets dried up and drew larger crowds. An estimated 500 people attended the event between the hours of 5 – 9:30 p.m.

“It was friendly and festive, but served as a reminder of how stark it is down there. Nothing is open,” said Ashley Duncan, President of the Spruce Street School PTA, who organized the event. “Everyone seemed ready for a night like this. The community came together in such a ginormous way.”

Jef Tuohy performs at The Spirit Project. Photo by Brook Altman

Of course, a steady stream of adorable dancing children continuously gathered in front of the bandstand, shaking it up with food smeared all over their faces.

All the right people showed up, too, including Manhattan Borough President candidate Julie Menin, current Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Council Member Margaret Chin, District Leader and City Council candidate Jennifer Rajkumar, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who presented the Spruce Street PTA with a state proclamation acknowledging the school for their support of the community.

Four food trucks, who each donated $250 for their place, flagged a stage that hosted musical performances by Jeff Touhy, The Hollows, and The Crusty Gentlemen. Parents and businesses donated everything from soundstage equipment to drinks, and sales from beer and wine tickets, as well as t-shirts, went to the Association.

“You bet I was there eating,” said Marco Pasanella, owner of Pasanella & Son Vintners at 115 South Street. “But not drinking too much, because it was our wine.”

Pasanella, who is also the acting director of the Association, said that seeing tons of kids on the block for the first time in “god knows how many months” made it feel like the neighborhood was alive again.

“We’re all here, it’s warm out, we’re back, and we’re happy,” he said. “I hope this is just the beginning.”

The Spirit Project’s donation lines will be kept open until May 1st (visit sprucestreetnyc.org and click on Spirit Project on the side panel), and the PTA plans to organize a new event each year to support a different cause.

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.”

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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.