BY BETSY KIM | The city Department of Education has slated the new school at 75 Morton St. to open in September 2017. However, citing overcrowding and the absence of a middle school in the Village, the 75 Morton Task Force is pushing for a September 2016 opening. Meanwhile, the task force is looking toward the new school in the Foundling Hospital building in Chelsea, at 17th St. and Sixth Ave., scheduled to open this September, as a temporary backup plan.
“What could happen and should happen is what’s called ‘incubating,’” said Keen Berger, the task force’s chairperson. “That’s when the school exists in another building until the actual building is ready. If we have to, we’ll incubate in Foundling because it’s a new building and it’s not yet full.”
The group hopes the Morton St. building will hold a total of 600 students, from sixth through eighth grade, including a separate school for 60 to 100 special-needs students. This would allow space for a gym, full auditorium, dance studio and library, said Berger.
However, D.O.E. says the structure can accommodate more students. Berger blasted this as a “sardine model — putting as many classrooms and kids as you can in the building.” She believes the number ultimately will fall somewhere between 600 and 900 students.
School District 2, which includes Battery Park City, Tribeca, part of Chinatown, the Village, Hell’s Kitchen and part of the Upper East Side up to 98th St., has an extremely dense student population. Berger noted that P.S. 3, 41, 234, 11, 33 and 130 have been a part of the planning process for 75 Morton, so likely will send some students to the new school. The task force encourages admitting students from outside the Village to increase diversity.
The project is still in the design process, and D.O.E. is assessing construction costs. The agency will meet with stakeholders before construction breaks ground. As the school’s opening approaches, the department will review demographic data and discuss admissions policies with elected officials and the community. This would also include the 75 Morton Community Alliance, a group of parents who worked to support the school.
The School Construction Authority purchased the 177,000-square-foot building from New York State for $40 million, which guarantees money for construction.
As for future costs, once the school opens — to keep it staffed and running — D.O.E. says it will fund them.
“It is my understanding that once they commit to a new school, they commit to operating it,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick.
Berger also expressed confidence in D.O.E. funding.
“I really believe the commitment is there,” she said. “Money is not the issue.”
Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, in the press, had linked the Bloomberg administration’s agreement to buy 75 Morton St. with the City Council’s approval in 2012 of the Rudin luxury housing development at the former St. Vincent’s Hospital site. But the Rudins never committed funds to the middle school. The developer did agree to pay $1 million total to P.S. 41 and 3 and the Foundling school over a 10-year period.
“Under the prior administration and prior City Council leadership, it became standard operating procedure, as part of these enormous giveaways to real estate developers, that there were promises of these community benefits that often never materialized,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greater Village Historic Preservation Society. “It’s sort of a fig leaf that is attached to these big, obscene real estate deals as a way of making them seem somewhat more palatable at the time they are approved.”
Yet, all parties agree that a middle school at 75 Morton St. is a positive addition to the Village.
“New construction benefits students, educators and communities and this new school will do just that,” said Harry Hartfield, a D.O.E. spokesperson. “That is why we are excited to be beginning a process that will result in a new state-of-the-art building for students and families.”
Added Glick, “You don’t always have an opportunity to celebrate and this is something where the community had a victory and we should celebrate.”
