NEW YORK—Residents from Harlem’s St. Nicholas Housing filed a lawsuit to halt the construction of a new inner-neighborhood charter school off West 129th Street where a park used to be. The announcement was made amid the clouds of dust and background noise coming from the nearby construction site.
“In the process of putting this lawsuit together, over the past several months, we as lawyers have had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of tenants and former tenants in the development,” said Sadia Rahim, a lawyer for the Urban Justice Department (UBJ), one of the nonprofits that filed the lawsuit.
“What we’ve learned is that NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) and Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) literally tore the heart out of this community. Because that’s what this park was: it was sort of the heart beating life into the community, with the children playing, people having weddings in the park, [and] people having their family barbecues.”
The City Law Department just started reviewing the lawsuit, and HCZ didn’t return a call for comment. NYCHA declined to comment, since they haven’t yet received any legal notification.
The slated charter school was made possible with a public-private partnership involving leadership by HCZ and funding by Google, Goldman-Sachs, and New York City Department of Education. It is part of a new comprehensive community care school model that provides more than education, like health care, and free community services, such as a gym.
Area residents all spoke of two commonalities: they were unaware of the project until it broke ground, and because of this, they feel like they have no voice and wonder what else could happen in their neighborhood without their knowledge.
“Who are we supposed to be, a nobody?” asked local grandmother Barbara Banks, who suspects her asthma worsened significantly due to the clouds of dust the construction site has added to the air. “We’re somebody. … You could call it stamped upon: we don’t exist, we are invisible people.”
“In the process of putting this lawsuit together, over the past several months, we as lawyers have had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of tenants and former tenants in the development,” said Sadia Rahim, a lawyer for the Urban Justice Department (UBJ), one of the nonprofits that filed the lawsuit.
“What we’ve learned is that NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) and Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) literally tore the heart out of this community. Because that’s what this park was: it was sort of the heart beating life into the community, with the children playing, people having weddings in the park, [and] people having their family barbecues.”
The City Law Department just started reviewing the lawsuit, and HCZ didn’t return a call for comment. NYCHA declined to comment, since they haven’t yet received any legal notification.
The slated charter school was made possible with a public-private partnership involving leadership by HCZ and funding by Google, Goldman-Sachs, and New York City Department of Education. It is part of a new comprehensive community care school model that provides more than education, like health care, and free community services, such as a gym.
Area residents all spoke of two commonalities: they were unaware of the project until it broke ground, and because of this, they feel like they have no voice and wonder what else could happen in their neighborhood without their knowledge.
“Who are we supposed to be, a nobody?” asked local grandmother Barbara Banks, who suspects her asthma worsened significantly due to the clouds of dust the construction site has added to the air. “We’re somebody. … You could call it stamped upon: we don’t exist, we are invisible people.”
The dust forced a group of women to disband after the press conference, while the background noise made it difficult to interview them before they disbanded.
Joel Kupferman, executive director of The New York Environmental Law and Justice Project (NYELJP), the other nonprofit that filed the lawsuit, voiced his concern about the dust, “I represented the residents in Lower Manhattan after 9/11, people are still suffering from the dust there.”
The dust, according to Kupferman, is expounded by 100 trees being removed from the property.
Traffic from construction and the planned neighborhood street extension connecting it to the next avenue are other concerns. The street previously dead-ended at the park.
Benefits of the project to the community, according to the project overview government document, include local construction jobs, and enriched education through open preference in the school lottery for children of St. Nicholas Houses.
While some residents don’t believe this, the project overview states that all 33 St. Nicholas families that applied in the first lottery in August 2010 were accepted, and based on area demographics, that trend would continue.
The lawsuit questions NYCHA’s recent $7 million sale of the property where the construction is taking place to HCZ, saying it takes much needed parkland, used for over 50 years by residents. There are also questions about the approval process involved.
“This is what we might call an unholy real estate deal,” said state Sen. Bill Perkins, a litigant in the lawsuit. “Ostensibly, it’s about something for the children, but ultimately it opens the door for public housing to be victimized by real estate development.”
Joel Kupferman, executive director of The New York Environmental Law and Justice Project (NYELJP), the other nonprofit that filed the lawsuit, voiced his concern about the dust, “I represented the residents in Lower Manhattan after 9/11, people are still suffering from the dust there.”
The dust, according to Kupferman, is expounded by 100 trees being removed from the property.
Traffic from construction and the planned neighborhood street extension connecting it to the next avenue are other concerns. The street previously dead-ended at the park.
Benefits of the project to the community, according to the project overview government document, include local construction jobs, and enriched education through open preference in the school lottery for children of St. Nicholas Houses.
While some residents don’t believe this, the project overview states that all 33 St. Nicholas families that applied in the first lottery in August 2010 were accepted, and based on area demographics, that trend would continue.
The lawsuit questions NYCHA’s recent $7 million sale of the property where the construction is taking place to HCZ, saying it takes much needed parkland, used for over 50 years by residents. There are also questions about the approval process involved.
“This is what we might call an unholy real estate deal,” said state Sen. Bill Perkins, a litigant in the lawsuit. “Ostensibly, it’s about something for the children, but ultimately it opens the door for public housing to be victimized by real estate development.”
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