A few weeks back, spokesperson Margie Feinberg said that the New York City Department of Education was prepared to take properties on Fourth Avenue through eminent domain in order to expedite construction of a new 480-seat primary school in Bay Ridge.It would be the first time the city's School Construction Authority has ever taken private land for a public school.
Peter Pantelidis, owner of a parking lot on Fourth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets, said he'd spent $50,000 on a design for a medical center, and Jimmy Anagnostakos, part-owner of a shuttered Fourth Avenue car wash on the same block, said the neighborhood badly needed a food market.
Anagnostakos was negotiating with Key Food when DOE's threat of eminent domain put talk of a supermarket and medical center on hold.
Pantelidis, who as a child saw hundreds of Bay Ridge homes demolished to build the Verrazano Bridge, refused to sell his property to the city, vowing to do everything he can, legally, to thwart the process.
Local Community Education Council 20, citing overcrowding, has been pushing for the new school, which would serve K through 5 and take the overflow from nearby P.S. 104 and 185.
According to CEC 20, there is no place else in the neighborhood to put the school.
According to a recent Brooklyn Paper article, the number of children in Bay Ridge between the ages of 5 and 18 has increased by 14% since 2000.
The Daily News article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_eminent_domain_cloud_
UPDATE
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the city is moving to acquire the Green Church property as the site of a new grade school.
The source of the Brooklyn Paper report is Dena Libner, communications director for Council Member Vincent Gentile, who proposed the Green Church property to the School Construction Authority last month.
Before the School Construction Authority can close the deal, its plans for the Green Church lot must be subjected to a public review process that Libner says will begin in January.
No mention of this news on Vincent Gentile's blog today. (Odd that Libner, Gentile's Webmaster, scooped her own blog by giving Gersh Kuntzman the exclusive.)
So the senseless destruction of the neighborhood's most important historic building may have facilitated the construction of a grade school to accommodate the burgeoning number of young children in Bay Ridge.
How could this outcome be seen as anything but a net loss?More from Gothamist:
http://gothamist.com/2008/12/15/no_more_condos_for_bay_ridge_green.php
More from Brownstoner:
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/12/green_church_go.php
More from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?id=25223
The post from Vincent Gentile's blog:
http://www.vincentgentile.blogspot.com/
