Years-Old Bleecker St School Plan Is Revived, But Still No Funds

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — A new public school in Greenwich Village is still in the works after New York University promised the city it could use its property for a school seven years ago.

The Department of Education revealed it still intends to use the NYU-owned property at 130 Bleecker St. near LaGuardia Place for a school.

"The DOE recently informed NYU that the DOE intends to exercise the option to develop a school at Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place," the 2020 to 2024 capital plan reads. "The City will work with community representatives to identify capital funding and anticipates this building would be built in the next Five Year Capital Plan; it is possible that design will begin in this capital plan if funding were to be identified."

The school is still a long ways off from being built; the documents dated November 2019 says it could be built in the next capital plan, which begins 2025. Capital funding has not been secured. Plus, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said they haven't heard from the DOE or School Construction Authority that they plan to proceed with the project, contrary to what the capital plan says.

But local leaders still saw the language in the capital plan as a step forward.

Council Member Margaret Chin said, "This victory is long overdue."

"For the past several years, my constituents have been fighting to create a new school on Bleecker Street," she said. "While we faced bumps on the road, we never lost sight of our goal and continued to push the Department of Education to recognize this need."

The public school was originally promised back in 2012 as a part of a neighborhood giveback for the university's expansion plan.

"I'm glad that it seems that the project is on track and NYU will be required to honor its commitment," added State Sen. Brad Hoylman, who was on the community board when the expansion plan was first winding through the public review process.

The city was previously supposed to commit to using the NYU-owned site by 2014, but the deadline has since been extended twice. Now, the SCA has until the end of 2023 to begin the construction phase, 2018 letters between NYU, politicians and the authority show.

"We are still in the early stages of the construction sequence regarding this future school site," SCA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz said. "We are working collaboratively with the Department of Education to advance this project as part of NYU's Core Project."

It is unclear whether the timeline will require NYU to further extend its deadline with the city. NYU spokesman Beckman added the university won't extend the deadline again.

Neighbors welcomed the few sentences tucked in the 300-page document as movement forward for the future school, currently a Morton Williams grocery store.

"I was thrilled," said Jeannine Kiely, co-chairperson of Community Board 2's schools committee. "I'm thrilled that that language is included in there because that puts us one step closer to making the school a reality."

CB 2 chair Carter Booth called it a "milestone" for the neighborhood benefits promised under the 2012 NYU expansion project.

Neighborhood leaders have submitted a plan of their own to allocate the Bleecker St. school for kids with language-based disabilities, such as dyslexia, through a city grant for new schooling initiatives. Community Board 2 has issued various letters (page 34 and page 21) about the need for such a public school.

Some local education advocates want 60 percent of the seats to be set aside for low-income students, who face uphill battles accessing services for learning disabilities, often sought at high-dollar private schools, says Akeela Azcuy, a mother of an elementary school student with dyslexia and children's clinical psychologist.

"It's a school that we hope will service the whole borough of Manhattan," said Azcuy, who grew up in the SoHo area and is a parent leader at an East Village school, where parents started a dyslexia discussion group. "I certainly feel more hopeful (for the Bleecker St. school) than I did a year and a half ago."