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The "supermoon" on Aug. 10, 2014. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

For years, the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) has seemed deficient in math skills. Somehow, the SCA couldn't seem to keep up with the reality of neighborhoods bursting with young children for whom there weren't enough seats in their local public schools.

But with legislation signed on Aug. 11 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the SCA will have to start doing its population math in a different way.

New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senator Daniel Squadron announced that legislation they sponsored to help address the severe overcrowding problem in New York City schools requires the SCA to collect population data and use this information in connection with the authority's five-year educational facilities capital plan. It requires the SCA and the New York City schools chancellor to account for how future population growth might affect continued overcrowding.

Speaker Silver noted that, "In my own Lower Manhattan community, families spend anxious months with their children on waitlists that can run over 100 names only to find classrooms filled to the brim and schools far over their capacity. In Queens and other parts of our city, children sit in makeshift trailers year after year because their schools have no space for them. This cannot continue. We have an obligation to give our children the highest quality education possible and that means smaller class sizes."

"For five years I've pushed my bill to require the City to use better data - like births and building permits - so planning for schools reflects the changing needs of communities," said Squadron. "Better information, a focus on neighborhoods, and more transparency will mean better, less crowded schools for more school kids."

Squadron acknowledged that, "Good planning alone won't solve overcrowding, but it will make it a lot more likely that good decisions are made for the future, and that classrooms will be there when families need them."

Eric Greenleaf, professor of marketing at the Stern School of Business at NYU, and also a member of Speaker Silver's School Overcrowding Task Force, expressed his belief that the "new emphasis on using neighborhood-level data, and more useful data, such as building permits for new apartments and houses and mapping recent births, will help the Department of Education forecast enrollments more accurately, build needed schools in a timely manner, and alleviate school overcrowding."

The law authorizes the SCA to enter into agreements and work with New York City's office of City Planning and Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene, Buildings and Housing Preservation and Development to access relevant data and render any services required in order to create uniform, student population projections for a minimum of five years to be used in the creation and implementation of the SCA's five-year capital plan, as well as school sitings.

It also requires the SCA to publicly respond to issues raised at Community Education Council (CEC) hearings on both school sitings and in response to the capital plan, including why alternative recommendations were or were not incorporated into the final plans and how any changes made to the proposed plan resulted from issues raised at hearings.

Members of Community Board 1 greeted the new law with cautious optimism.

"The signing of the law to reduce overcrowding in New York City schools could not come at a more needed time for Lower Manhattan," said CB1 chair, Catherine McVay Hughes. "Addressing school overcrowding has been a top priority in CB1 for some time. This makes for a much better planning policy. A big thank you to Speaker Silver, Senator Squadron and Governor Cuomo."

Tricia Joyce, chair of CB1's Youth & Education Committee, called the new law "a great first step and a significant achievement. I do hope that these new requirements breed timely action in terms of not only determining the need, but in the funding, siting and building of new school seats concurrent with population growth and residential development," she said.

Paul Hovitz, co-chair of the Youth & Education Committee, said that the law was

"certainly good news." But, he said, "Now, we need to see movement toward positive projection of our seat needs and action to address them. In particular, we were promised 1,000 seats for CB1. As of now, just 456 are funded and not yet sited."

"The Financial District Gains Momentum," New York Times, 8/8/14. After noting that the area south of Chambers Street, all of which the author of this article chooses to regard as the "financial district" had gone through some hard times, the writer cheerfully reports that, "Residents, many of them families, are streaming downtown, even if the neighborhood no longer offers the discount it once did. This winter, prices edged above the average for all of Manhattan for the first time.
The area has about 43,000 residents, according to census figures compiled by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College, which is almost double the population in 2000, when it was 23,000." For the complete article, click here.

"8 hurt, including firefighter, in smoky TriBeCa high-rise fire," pix11, 8/10/14. A fire at Independence Plaza North's 310 Greenwich St. building erupted on Sunday evening. "Eight people, including a firefighter, were hurt in a smoky blaze at residential high-rise in Manhattan's TriBeCa neighborhood," says pix11. The fire started around 8:40 p.m. and was under control by 10:25 p.m. For the article, click here. Diane Lapson, who lives at IPN, said, "We are waiting to hear the complete story. We were told the fire was in the hallway, not in apartment 5B where they originally said it started. The biggest problem was smoke inhalation. Some people were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation." Lapson said that in September, Community Board 1 is planning to host a forum on fire safety and what to do in case of a fire. "We need it more than ever now," she said.

"Trinity Wall Street's Music Director Considers Himself a 'Composer Who Conducts'," Wall Street Journal, 8/11/14. "In New York's classical music scene, [Julian] Wachner, 44 years old, is best known as a conductor and music director at Trinity Wall Street, the downtown church where he has created an ambitious music program, focusing on early and Baroque music, new commissions and festivals of works by composers like Stravinsky and Britten," says the Wall Street Journal. "But the problem with his success at Trinity, he has found, is that it overshadows the reason he took the job in the first place." Wachner says that he thinks of himself as "a composer who conducts" and "everything else in life was to support that habit." The label Musica Omnia, which is distributed by Naxos, is about to release a three-disc set of Wachner's compositions. "The album showcases a range of forms and styles, from symphony to oratorio to choral works, performed by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Novus NY, the Trinity-based contemporary music ensemble founded by Mr. Wachner." For the complete article, click here.

"Regus and Brookfield kiss and make up," Crain's New York Business, 8/8/14. "It appears there are no hard feelings between Regus, the city's largest provider of office space to small tenants, and Brookfield Office Properties, the landlord Regus just sued for $10 million," says Crain's. "Regus, which leases blocks of office space, subdivides it and then sublets it to small businesses and entrepreneurs in need of temporary or individual workspaces, has signed a 23,000-square-foot lease at 1 Liberty Plaza, the large office tower owned by Brookfield across the street to the east from the World Trade Center site. The deal comes after Regus accused Brookfield and American Express, which co-own the nearby office building at 200 Vesey St., of denying its tenants access at the tower and forcing them to pass through tedious security measures to gain entry to their space." Regus abandoned that space before signing on at 1 Liberty Plaza. For the complete article, click here.

"Seizing on stalled sites," The Real Deal, 8/1/14. "With land prices skyrocketing, cranes dotting the skyline and new projects launching almost daily, it may seem like development in New York City is firing on all cylinders. And it is," says The Real Deal. "But, surprisingly, there are still hundreds of stalled developments throughout the five boroughs. In fact, the city Department of Buildings identifies more than 530 locations on its 'Stalled Sites' list which it started up in 2009 during the recession. Work on those sites was halted and has never resumed - either because of financial distress or because of another problem, whether it be construction violations or legal wrangling. However, rather than a lifeless list of dead properties, the list has become a handy tool for some of the city's savviest real estate investors - including Extell Development, Toll Brothers and Fortis Property Group - to pick over in their efforts to find distressed development sites to go after." The Real Deal named the five largest of the stalled sites in Manhattan. Two of them are in Lower Manhattan: One of them is at 112-114 Chambers St. in Tribeca, two four-story mixed-use buildings erected more than 150 years ago. The other is a building at 96 Greenwich St. in the Financial District. Once home to the Pussycat Lounge, the building dates from the end of the 18th century. For the complete article, click here.