A building site in Battery Park City that had been set aside for a 10-story Museum of Women is being reconsidered for use as a school, according to a front-page article by Douglas Feiden in today's edition of The New York Daily News.

"Former Gov. George Pataki wasted nearly $3 million in taxpayer money on a plan to build a women's museum that today is just an empty lot in lower Manhattan," according to the article, which added that "Dreamed up by a commission chaired by his wife, Libby, the Museum of Women burned through state subsidies by hiring dozens of consultants, including two fund-raisers who raised no money."

"When the nine-year saga finally sputtered to a quiet end in September," the article continued, "the Patakis' 'museum' had raised less than $23,000 from the private sector and procured one 'artifact' - a wagon used in suffragette rallies that wound up in an upstate hay barn. Now that Pataki is gone, Gov. Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg are expected to announce the plot of highly coveted state land in Manhattan will finally serve a public purpose as the site of a badly needed new school."

In 1998, the governor asked his wife to head a commission to honor the achievements of women to celebrate the 150th anniversary that year of the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls.

Plans called for a 10-story, 125,000-square-foot building at Battery Place and First Place with exhibits about the history of women in America with a roof garden, a leadership center, and artifacts.

Mr. Feiden's article noted that "At one point, the museum estimated its price tag would be $146 million, including $27.5 million for exhibits and artifacts" and that "By 1999, Pataki steered the first of four discretionary grants that eventually would total $2.2 million from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to start the museum."

The museum filed dissolution papers in September, according to Mr. Feiden's article.