The M22 bus will keep running between Battery Park City and the Lower East Side, thanks to a last- minute reprieve from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but Downtown will still see other bus and subway cuts.

The M.T.A. had planned to discontinue the portion of the M22 between City Hall and Battery Park City and stop all service on the route on week- ends to save about $1 million a year. But after Downtown residents and elected offi cials protested at a public hearing earlier this month, the M.T.A. decided not to make such a drastic cut to the M22.

“I am absolutely delight- ed,” said Linda Belfer, chair- person of Community Board 1’s B.P.C. Committee. “To stop [M22 service] was an utterly ridiculous thing.”

Lower Manhattan will still see a dramatic impact from the $93 million in cuts the M.T.A. board approved Wednesday to fi ll its nearly $800 million operating bud- get shortfall. Starting later this year, the M train will no lon- ger run through Chinatown and the Financial District. And changes to other bus and subway lines — including the N/Q/R/W, M6, M8, M9, M15 and M20 — will also mean less service for Downtown.

Randy Credico, a come- dian turned drug activist, wants to give Senator Chuck Schumer a primary election challenge — something Schumer notably didn’t face in his 2004 re-election.

Credico, in his “mid-50s,” well, “early-mid-50s,” as he hedged, made his name in Las Vegas with his politi- cal impersonations in the 1980s, and appeared on the “Tonight Show” in 1984.

“I imitated Johnny Carson — and was blackballed for calling Jeane Kirkpatrick a Nazi,” he recalled of his first and last gig on the show.

moved to New York in 1981. Starting about a dozen years ago, he transformed him- self into an activist fighting for reform of the punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws. He had earlier met radical attor- ney William Kunstler when he was seeking legal help for his then-girlfriend, actress and singer Joey Heatherton.

Becoming friends with Kunstler, Credico went on to head the William Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice after the civil rights lawyer’s death. For the past 20 years, he has lived off and on at Kunstler’s Gay St. building — where the Kunstler Fund is located. He

KOCH VISITS
THE ‘GREEN
ZONE,’ P. 37

In our Spring Progress Report 2010, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe gives an update on city parks scheduled to open later this year with “play workers,” and Community Board 1 chairperson Julie Menin lays out the best ways to spend the remaining Lower Manhattan Development Corp. money, which could be as high as $300 million. Above, the Hudson River Park’s Tribeca section, which the H.R.P. Trust expects to be mostly fi nished by the end of the year. For more updates on Downtown projects, see pages 15 – 28.

Goldman’s
hired guns also
work for the
N.Y.P.D.

Former Mets closer John Franco will be at the Downtown Little League’s Opening Day festivities April 10. Franco, a former D.L.L. parent and Tribeca resident, will reunite with an old Shea Stadium companion, Mr. Met. Ms.Chin, as in CouncilmemberMargaret, is also expected as is Lower Manhattan’s marching band, the TriBattery Pops. The play- ers will make their annual march from City Hall to the Battery Park City fields at 9 a.m. and will get a chance to time their fastballs in a pitching booth. The league will also be collecting used baseball equipment.

Board 1 leaders for a few years, gave them an easy excuse not to show up at Downtown Independent Democrats’ meeting Tuesday: it was the same night as C.B. 1’s full board meeting.

Two years ago, Sweeney, president of the political club, accused C.B. 1 chairperson Julie Menin of orchestrating a “coup” against him. He ended up staving off the leader- ship challenge from C.B.1’s Pat Moore. Last year, D.I.D. splintered and some C.B. 1 leaders and others joined Lower Manhattan Democrats.

Sweeney assured us the scheduling conflict was not a slap, and quipped it was one of the perils of being a “benevolent dictator.” He said it was others in the club who picked the date and they should have checked the commu- nity board calendar.

Sweeney is stepping down as president, and this week the club nominated Jeanne Wilcke and Marc Ameruso to run for the top spot. Adam Silvera, who had been looking to run against Wilcke, stepped aside to run for V.P., and Ameruso joined the race.

Though Ameruso is a C.B. 1 member, that won’t neces- sarily be a disadvantage for him in a D.I.D. election since he is often at odds with Menin.

For his part, Sweeney, a C.B. 2 member, insists there is no Board 1 vendetta, pointing out the April 22 D.I.D. elec- tion conflicts with a C.B. 2 meeting.

There is no lure like Lady Liberty for politicians who focus on stopping illegal immigration. Last week Long Island Democrat Steve Levy announced his Republican campaign for governor in Battery Park with a view of the Statue of Liberty. Levy has taken flack over the years for tough statements about illegal immigrants on Long Island. But do you remember that in 1995, another immigration crusader, California Gov.P e t e

here in Lower Manhattan in order to use the statue as a backdrop? Heck, you get points if you even remember Wilson ran for president.

The Emma Lazarus poem on the statue welcomes the world’s “wretched refuse” and “homeless” people – two groups Levy and Wilson never sounded enthusiastic about letting into the country.

The new Battery Park City Library is getting all the attention these days, but what about Lower Manhattan’s other library, the 21-year-old New Amsterdam Branch on Murray St.?

“People still seem to be coming here,” said Diane Chin, manager of the New Amsterdam Branch, on a rainy after- noon this week. She hasn’t noticed a drop in the volume of customers or in materials checked out, though a few fami- lies stopped in to say goodbye because they would be going to the B.P.C. branch from now on.

Chin said she had visited the new B.P.C. library and was impressed by the size of the children’s area. Asked what the smaller New Amsterdam Branch has that the B.P.C. Library doesn’t, Chin was momentarily stumped. Then she said her branch has a popular read-aloud pro- gram for babies from birth to 18 months, and also does movie events. The B.P.C. branch doesn’t offer those pro- grams — yet.

The blog BrickUnderground recently did a survey of the loudest and quietest neighborhoods in Manhattan, and surprisingly found that Downtown is one of the best places to get a good night’s sleep.

Despite the frequent griping we hear about construction noise, bar noise and even ferry noise in Lower Manhattan, residents of Community Board 1 logged only 436 noise com- plaints by calling 311 in 2009. Only Midtown’s Community Board 5 had fewer complaints, at 403. By comparison, resi- dents of Community Board 12, which covers Washington Heights and Inwood, made almost 15 times as many noise complaints as C.B. 1: 6,439.

Perhaps one reason C.B. 1’s fi gures are so low is that residents have gotten tired of calling 311 and not seeing any results. Some noisy projects, like the World Trade Center site, are not under the city’s jurisdiction so there’s not much that a 311 call can do.

Don’t be alarmed if you hear some growling near the Pier 17 mall food court — it’s just the setup of “Tigers — Tracking a Legend,” an interactive exhibit opening April 24.

“We’re turning it into an Indian jungle, should you want a break from the urban jungle,” Amore told Community Board 1 last week.

The nine-month exhibit includes high-tech features such as an electronic climbing wall and side-by-side CT scans of a tiger and a human being. Tickets are $15 for adults and $13 for children. And no — there won’t be any live tigers.

The good news is that the crime rate in Battery Park City is so low that people feel secure enough to lock their bikes in the street for weeks at a time. That’s also the bad news. The B.P.C. Authority’s Leticia Remauro tells us with the warm weather coming, officials want to make sure that the neighborhood’s bike racks have enough space for com- muters using “pedal power.” Bikes permanently anchored to racks near Gateway Plaza and other parts of the nabe will soon get notices asking them to use ‘em or lose ‘em. Owners will be able to recover their bikes at the Regatta, or if they wait too long, the First Precinct.

88 Fulton Street
(Corner of 33 Gold St.)
New York, NY 10038
212.587.8930
212.587.8935

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Blotter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Transit Sam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Progress Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 - 28

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The upcoming week’s schedule of Community Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless otherwise noted, all committee meetings are held at the board office, located at 49-51 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m.

Parents found relief or anxiety in their mailboxes this week as kindergarten admis- sions letters arrived.

The relief went mostly to families who are zoned for P.S. 89, P.S. 276 and the Spruce Street School — all of whom received accep- tances.

But many families zoned for P.S. 234 were not so lucky. Tribeca’s perennially over- crowded elementary school received far too many applications and used a lottery to place 67 children on a waiting list.

Jim St. Andre, who lives at 50 Murray St., a few blocks from P.S. 234, opened his letter on Wednesday to fi nd that his son was No. 61.

“We have no chance of getting in,” St. Andre said Wednesday night. “It’s an incred- ible amount of disappointment and frustration with the situation.”

Part of St. Andre’s frustration is that the Dept. of Education will not let him and other waitlisted families express a preference for their second choice. St. Andre, for example, prefers the Spruce Street School over P.S. 89 or P.S. 276 because he doesn’t want his son to cross the West Side Highway at one of its busiest intersections.

Elizabeth Rose, the D.O.E.’s director of portfolio planning for District 2, said Wednesday night that she understood the community board’s position, but the city’s pol- icy is to place waitlisted children in the nearest school with available seats, without asking for a preference. Rose said giving parents the extra choice ultimately “creates worse feelings and more anxiety,” especially if the city can’t honor that choice.

Rose spoke at the District 2 Community Education Council meeting, where she laid out the next steps for families zoned for P.S. 234.

Rose said that Lisa Ripperger, principal of P.S. 234, has already heard from some parents who received one of the school’s 115 general education seats but are sending their children to private school. Additional seats in the school will open up as children with special needs are placed in the collaborative team teaching program or as they are admit- ted to the city’s gifted and talented programs, she said.

P.S. 234 asked all families who received seats to confi rm that they want to attend by April 9 and to register between April 12 and April 23. As the school hears of seats opening up, “They will not wait, they will not pass Go,” Rose said, but the school will immedi-

Those children who are still on P.S. 234’s waitlist in May will be offered alternate seats the week of May 17, Rose said. That’s six weeks earlier than the D.O.E. notifi ed parents on waitlists Downtown last year, she said.

“Because we know how anxious families are, we want to make sure everyone knows as early as they possibly can,” Rose said.

The alternate offers will likely be in extra classes the city opens in P.S. 276 and the Spruce Street School and in available space at P.S. 3 in the Village. Rose said it was unlikely that seats would open up at P.S. 89.

In fact, P.S. 89 in north Battery Park City is also dealing with more applications than the school can handle: 88 for 65 general educa- tion seats. But unlike P.S. 234, which held a lottery, P.S 89 sent out acceptance letters to all the zoned students who applied. To prevent the school from being overcrowded this fall, the city also sent a second letter to the roughly 20 children who live in Gateway Plaza, offer- ing them the chance to switch to P.S. 276, the new school opening in south B.P.C.

Connie Schraft, parent coordinator at P.S. 89, said she expects many Gateway families to take the 276 offer, since they live close to 276 and wanted to be zoned there anyway.

St. Andre, the Murray St. parent, said it was unfair for the city to offer a choice to some Lower Manhattan families and not others.

“All any of us are hoping for is a reason- able, defensible, logical plan going forward that treats all residents the same way,” he said.

The Dept. of Education fi red back at Manhattan Youth last week in the fi ght over classroom space for P.S. 234.

For the past two years, the D.O.E. has rent- ed two classrooms for the overcrowded P.S. 234 in Manhattan Youth’s Downtown Community Center. The D.O.E.’s lease on the classrooms expires this year, and the city offered to pay $48 per square foot for a renewal, a small increase over the $45 per square foot D.O.E. currently pays, Townley said. But Townley wants the city to pay $150 per square foot, because that is how much Manhattan Youth would need to build out similar space nearby, he said.

The city balked at Townley’s request, and last Friday Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, D.O.E. spokesperson, released a statement sharply critical of Townley:

“We have made Mr. Townley a top of the market offer, which is extremely fair given that there has not been one alteration to the space since the beginning of the lease,” Zarin- Rosenfeld said in an e-mail to Downtown Express. “Ultimately, the D.O.E. wants to pay this top of the market rate so we can ensure the space continues to be used by public school students. If the owner of the space would pre- fer to use the space for ‘fee-based programs’ in order to boost his personal margins, that is his unfortunate position.”

The city’s offer of $48 per square foot appears fair for raw offi ce space: The average rent for offi ce space below Chambers St. was about $40 per square foot in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the Downtown Alliance. But Townley said the Manhattan Youth class- rooms are not raw space — they are already built out with ventilation systems and bath- rooms and meet the D.O.E.’s stringent require- ments, so they are worth a lot more, he said.

Also, while Townley acknowledged that he had not made improvements to the two class- rooms since the lease began, he said he spent about $35,000 beforehand to meet the city’s classroom space codes, and he spends about $15,000 a year on security and maintenance for the rooms.

The Dept. of Education did not contradict any of Townley’s numbers, including the $48 per square foot offer for the renewal.

Downtown Express incorrectly reported last week that the city had offered Townley $46 per square foot. Townley gave the slightly lower fi gure at a meeting two weeks ago, and the D.O.E. representative at the meeting did not dispute it. Downtown Express also over- estimated Manhattan Youth’s annual rent take last week, because the D.O.E. does not use the 2,000 square feet of classroom space when school is not in session. The D.O.E. currently pays Manhattan Youth about $78,000 a year and is offering an increase to $83,500, Townley said. Townley is asking for about $260,000 a year, not the $300,000 reported last week.

P.S. 234, which is next-door to the Downtown Community Center in Tribeca, cur- rently uses the two rented classrooms for art and science. If the city and Manhattan Youth do not reach an agreement, the art and science teachers will wheel carts into the school’s regu- lar classrooms to teach those subjects.

Without P.S. 234 using the community cen- ter classrooms, Townley said he might convert one into a technology lab and the other into active recreation space for young children. Townley said he could easily make up the $83,500 the city is offering by running other programs in the two rooms. The money could

come from a variety of sources including fees paid by the participants or from government contracts, Townley said.

Still, Townley’s fi rst choice is to reach a deal with the city that would allow P.S. 234 to keep the space. Since negotiations have broken down, Townley wants an independent arbiter with a real-estate background to hear the case. But the city is not interested.

“We feel there’s no need for an independent arbiter when we’re making a top of the market offer for the space,” Zarin-Rosenfeld said.

The Dept. of Education’s Elizabeth Rose
explained the Downtown kindergarten
decision Wednesday night.

The Dept. of Education is spending $118 million to rent the former Sports Museum of America space at 26 Broadway for 30 years.

The city plans to build 650 high school seats on the first and second floors of the building, opening in 2011. The D.O.E. has not decided which existing high school pro- gram will move into the space.

Downtown Express first reported the city’s lease last week, but the D.O.E. only just disclosed the cost of renting the 106,000 square feet of space. The lease, signed last month, starts at $3.4 million a year and rises to $4.5 million by the end of the term, said Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, D.O.E. spokesperson. Over the 30 years, the lease averages out to $37 per square foot.

The D.O.E. is already leasing another 180,000 square feet on the fourth through seventh floors of 26 Broadway for the Greenwich Village Middle School and the Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women. The 30-year lease for those schools cost $250 million, or about $46 per square foot.

Some parents concerned about local school overcrowding hope the city will use the new 26 Broadway space for a middle school instead. However, the D.O.E. still plans to use the space to replace high school seats recently lost at 220 W. 58th St. when the city’s lease there expired.