Today is the first school day for the students at the Hannah Senesh School and the first day in their new location at 342 Smith Street. Over the last year and a half, the residents of Carroll Gardens have seen the old District 15 NYC Board Of Education building transform into a vision of blue, beige and orange. If the former building was a sad and drab brown brick building, this new version would be more at home in Disneyland than in a brownstone neighborhood. ( What was their architect thinking?)
What will be interesting to watch over the next few months is how the parents of the Hannah Senesh school will react to the controversial residential building designed by controversial architect Robert Scarano which will go up right next door at 360 Smith Street. After all, the school inhabits the same lot. The poor students attending classes in the building will have huge cranes overhead on most school days once construction starts. For months, there will be noise and dust. Lots of dust. It makes me wonder if the school will be able to use its newly added recreation yard on the roof. Big trucks will be idling in front of the place as dirt is carted away and material is being brought in. Not to speak of the mess of having the F Train subway plaza closed and demolished right next door.
Hannah Senesh is a private school with a hefty tuition. For the 2007-2008 school year, the cost is about $ 19,000-$20,000. A lot to pay for all this inconvenience if you ask me. It makes me wonder if the parents knew beforehand that Junior will be sitting in his classroom listening to big pilings being hammered into the ground just feet away. The parents may want to reach out to C.O.R.D. , the neighborhood group fighting the building at 360 Smith. I hope that they will help to force Scarano to follow the building rules and codes for once in his life. It will be interesting to watch.
0 comments:
Post a Comment