We've heard from some parents over at The Neighborhood School/PS 63 on East Third Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...
As we understand it, officials from the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) announced last week that they will begin removing asbestos from the building this fall ahead of a 2- to 3-year school renovation... the removal will occur after school hours starting at 4, which will disrupt a fair number of programs
From an email from a parent that is in circulation:
[Last] week my fellow parents and I were alarmed to find out that the scaffolding surrounding our school is there to take out asbestos and remove lead paint. I was even more upset to discover that no work was done over the summer and that the contractor wants to start now when school is session. We cannot allow this to happen!!! Asbestos and lead that are airborne due to construction pose serious health threats.
There's a meeting this morning with school officials to begin to address these issues (available parents are encouraged to show support outside the school, per the above flyer) ... there will be also be a Neighborhood School community meeting on Thursday morning at 8:40 with SCA reps.
The parents hope to postpone the work until next summer ...
Updated 9 a.m.
Serena Solomon has more details on this story over at DNAinfo.
12 comments:
The School Construction Authority put up she scaffolding last year, but did then nothing all summer, which ONE WOULD THINK would be a good time to do facilities work on a, y'know, SCHOOL.
Does the Parent Association's Buildings Committee not keep up with these things? Is this really coming as a surprise?
What of the noise affecting the residents on all 4 sides? Every other project the school has had done to it over the years has had attendant noise such as trucks arriving to unload early and take away late, with all those beepers announcing backing up. Cranes, jack-hammers, etc. Last year, when they were taking "bricks out of the wall" you could hear their little air hammers chattering long into the night with the beep beep beep of their crane each time it re-positioned. All of us neighbors - get ready!
enduring noise is the stealth tax the residents pay directly to businesses
Really? Whining about noise from construction on a public school building? I'm sorry, but you live in New York City, and they're not putting up a condo. It's for the public good. Including yours. Even if you don't have kids. You want the city's children -- those whose parents were to shiftless to get them into Dalton, anyway -- running wild in the streets all day, perhaps?
These old public school buildings -- and Neighborhood is a particularly gorgeous specimen, both architecturally and as a place of learning and nurturing -- need constant work. They're old. And precious.
Hmm they had all summer to do this work, but they wait until the school year is in full swing? Makes no sense to me
@sinestra: I think it makes sense. Look at all the sidewalk sheds around the city with no work going on day by day. Yes, no work. None.
I think that the deal is that the contractors grab as many contracts as they can get, then work as they have time, labor, and equipment.
So instead of finishing one project and moving on to another, they start 10 projects and stall all of them until they have the resources available to work on some of them.
its a metaphor for the entire city:
CRACKED
Well that does make sense- in a weird inefficient kind of way! Thanks Sidewalk Shed!!
our last principal(who conveniently left) did not inform anyone of the magnitude of this project--so no we did not know about this until a few days ago--the scaffolding that went up we were told was to do some minor work --not a project that involves a 2-3 year span-as well as asbestos abatement and no relocation or plan in place for the parents who need after school care for their children-the building has two public schools btw-and many families are and will be affected and as a parent I care about the whole community no matter what--there is much much more to this story...
I am a parent of a child at The Neighborhood School and it is inconceivable to me that it would even be considered to have the children in the building while asbestos is being removed. All of the safety precautions in the world and the monitoring that is promised are not enough to insure our children's safety and health. This work involving asbestos must be done when school is out of session (over the summer) and the building must be safely tented to protect neighbors. The hazards associated with doing this type of work while the building is in use are beyond me. This work cannot be during the school year!!!!
Anonymous 9/26 9:34,
I'm sorry to hear this. Novello certainly left the school in a mess; you'd almost think he was planted there by Klein/Moscowitz, to do exactly what he did.
On a (possibly) unrelated note: I heard there were five Kindergarten spots open at the beginning of this school year. Is that true?
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