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September 8, 2008
Ratner in Lower Manhattan: health and education
The NY Sun, Primary Care Boost on Tap For Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan's only hospital is planning an $8 million wellness center to offer primary care services to tens of thousands of downtown residents and Wall Street employees.
...
Citing a residential boom in the area, hospital officials said the center will enable medical staff to care for an influx of patients, and in particular an estimated 900 families in a new residential tower across the street from the hospital that is being developed by Forest City Ratner.
NoLandGrab: The residential tower across the street from the hospital is Ratner's Beekman Tower project, designed by Frank Gehry.
Downtown Express, From war protests — Vietnam, to the school overcrowding battle
As delays loomed at Ratner's Beekman St. tower, one father swung into action:
[Eric] Greenleaf and his family live in an apartment facing the construction of the new K-8 Beekman St. school. He and other parents were counting on the school to open in fall 2009, to relieve the overcrowding at P.S. 234. But last year, from his window, Greenleaf watched work on the school’s foundation grind to a halt. Developer Bruce Ratner couldn’t get financing for the 76-story apartment tower, which would house the school in its base.
“It became pretty obvious that the school was probably not going to open on time,” Greenleaf said last week.
As months passed and the site stayed dormant, Greenleaf decided to take action: He started an overcrowding committee at Tribeca’s P.S. 234, where his twin son and daughter were in first grade.
At the end of last March, Ratner restarted work on the Beekman tower but pushed the school’s opening date to 2010, and some think with tower construction, it won’t be safe to open the school until 2011. With Beekman delayed and the green school in Battery Park City not opening until 2010, Greenleaf and others realized that Lower Manhattan children would need temporary school seats in 2008 and 2009.
He and a core group of P.T.A. members mobilized parents at P.S. 234 and P.S. 89.
NoLandGrab: By the way, the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement determined that there would be no need to create more classroom space to make way for residents of the megaproject, even though the statistics used in the study were outdated. [The law does not require the study authors to use up-to-date statistics (no joke).]
If Eric Greenleaf's tale is any indication, if Ratner builds Atlantic Yards, it will be up to parents to scramble and organize to force politicians to pay attention and come up with knee-jerk solutions to predictable classroom overcrowding.
Posted by lumi at September 8, 2008 5:07 AM