New tower, new middle school?
Families in downtown Brooklyn have long lobbied DOE for new middle schools, especially as local elementaries revive (pace, PS 8's new expansion plans) and the waterfront neighborhoods host new (and massive) housing developments. Now, the Daily News reports there's more support for a new middle school in DUMBO, 45,000 square feet of spanking-new classroom space in a much-criticized project by the Walentas family Two Trees company, headed up by heir apparent, 33-year-old Jed Walentas. Even Schools Construction Authority president Sharon Greenberger has thrown her support behind the Dock St. tower middle school -- and it's safe to bet, the DOE approved her endorsement.
Walentas pere has been steadily, stealthily buying up waterfront and DUMBO parcels for the last two decades, with not a lot of love lost between him and local residents. Cynics wonder, in the quid-pro-quo world of real estate development, what the net gain is for his Dock St. tower, above and beyond the potential benefit to the community.
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In Staten Island, there is the closed Doctor's Hospital building which has been empty for many years now. For awhile Staten Island Hospital utilized the building but only for a brief time. It's across the street from P.S. 48R, which is quite overcrowded. The students from that school are zoned to attend I.S. 49R, Dreyfus Intermediate School. Many of the parents are hesitant to send their children there because of the incidents of violence in the school. It's been thrown around by local politians, parents and residents to turn this building into a K-8 or intermediate/middle school. This seems like a viable option, since the NYC DOE won't have to start fresh building another school and it's already there. All they would have to do some remodeling and other things to get it up and running, such as making it feasible to operate as a school. It's a shame Staten Island doesn't get the schools and seats that it needs, especially since it's the fastest growing borough in NYC. We're already close to 500,000 residents and bursting at the seams when it comes to traffic and road.
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