Two floors in the great former Standard Oil skyscraper at 26 Broadway near Battery Park are being considered by the Department of Education for a new Greenwich Village Middle School for the 2010 school year.
26 Broadway, which was designed in 1920 by Carrere & Hastings and Shreve, Lamb & Blake and completed in 1928 and is notable for its curved limestone facade and lantern crown. It is one of Lower Manhattan's most famous skyline buildings that defined the international image of American's financial markets.
Many of Lower Manhattan's great pre-war financial office buidings have been converted in recent years to residential uses such as 15 Broadway Street, 20 Pine Street, 20 Exchange Place, and 37, 63 and 75 Wall Street and 55 liberty Street. The tremendous residential transformation of much of Lower Manhattan in recent years has led to great pressure to find school space to accommodate the children of the new residents, all of whom cannot fit into PS 234, the great school with a tugboat fence designed by Richard Datner in TriBeca.
26 Broadway, of course, is quite a distance from Greenwich Village and an article in this week's edition of The Villager by Albert Amateau noted that parents in the existing Greenwich Village Middle School, the former PS 3 on Hudson Street, "wish there were other options."
"'We remain disappointed that the D.O.E. has not been able to come up with space in the Village - and at the same time, we do not want to be temporarily located, only to be moved again in a year or two,' Lisa Bernhard, a G.V.M.S. parent and leader of the school's parent-teacher association, said last week," Mr. Amateau reorted.
"'On the other hand, 26 Broadway is a newly renovated facility that will offer our kids a comfortable, spacious place to learn. Believe me, that's got to be better than where we are now,' Bernhard added, referring to the over-capacity building at Hudson and Grove Sts. in the Village that the middle school has been sharing for a decade with P.S. 3," his article continued.
"Of the 222 students currently enrolled in G.V.M.S.," Mr. Amateau's article noted, "only 18 live in the Greenwich Village district, whose zoned elementary schools are P.S. 3 and P.S. 41."
District 2 Community Education Council members noted last week that the state-owned building at 75 Morton St. has been the community's preference for more than a year, but Ms. Bernhard said the building would not be ready in 2010 as "The elevators need replacing, asbestos needs to be dealt with and a state office would have to move."
26 Broadway, which was designed in 1920 by Carrere & Hastings and Shreve, Lamb & Blake and completed in 1928 and is notable for its curved limestone facade and lantern crown. It is one of Lower Manhattan's most famous skyline buildings that defined the international image of American's financial markets.
Many of Lower Manhattan's great pre-war financial office buidings have been converted in recent years to residential uses such as 15 Broadway Street, 20 Pine Street, 20 Exchange Place, and 37, 63 and 75 Wall Street and 55 liberty Street. The tremendous residential transformation of much of Lower Manhattan in recent years has led to great pressure to find school space to accommodate the children of the new residents, all of whom cannot fit into PS 234, the great school with a tugboat fence designed by Richard Datner in TriBeca.
26 Broadway, of course, is quite a distance from Greenwich Village and an article in this week's edition of The Villager by Albert Amateau noted that parents in the existing Greenwich Village Middle School, the former PS 3 on Hudson Street, "wish there were other options."
"'We remain disappointed that the D.O.E. has not been able to come up with space in the Village - and at the same time, we do not want to be temporarily located, only to be moved again in a year or two,' Lisa Bernhard, a G.V.M.S. parent and leader of the school's parent-teacher association, said last week," Mr. Amateau reorted.
"'On the other hand, 26 Broadway is a newly renovated facility that will offer our kids a comfortable, spacious place to learn. Believe me, that's got to be better than where we are now,' Bernhard added, referring to the over-capacity building at Hudson and Grove Sts. in the Village that the middle school has been sharing for a decade with P.S. 3," his article continued.
"Of the 222 students currently enrolled in G.V.M.S.," Mr. Amateau's article noted, "only 18 live in the Greenwich Village district, whose zoned elementary schools are P.S. 3 and P.S. 41."
District 2 Community Education Council members noted last week that the state-owned building at 75 Morton St. has been the community's preference for more than a year, but Ms. Bernhard said the building would not be ready in 2010 as "The elevators need replacing, asbestos needs to be dealt with and a state office would have to move."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
6sqft delivers the latest on real estate, architecture, and design, straight from New York City.
