The lead article in the issue that few people ever saw was about overcrowding at P.S. 234. The school had 670 students enrolled, 80 more than the ideal capacity.
The same issue included an article reporting that developer Scott Resnick agreed to build a 135-foot residential tower and an 18,000-square-foot community recreation center at Site 5C on the same block as the school. Resnick had previously been fighting the rec center, which was favored by Community Board 1.
There was also an article in the Sept. 11 issue about C.B. 1’s fight against developer Edward Minskoff’s plan for a 600-foot office tower at Site 5B, across from the school.
Our editorial began: “Let the optimists look at Site 5C and the pessimists at Site 5B.” As it turned out both projects changed drastically. Resnick agreed to add a school annex to his project and doubled the building’s height to 300 feet. Minskoff switched to residential towers and nearly halved the height of his tallest building down to 375 feet.
Coincidentally, our Sept. 11 issue included the phrase “ground zero.” An article about campaign attack literature in the closing days of the Democratic City Council primary said: “Independence Plaza North has apparently turned into ground zero in the increasingly negative First District City Council campaign, where flyers criticizing the candidates have been circulating.”
The back page ad was for the Dine Around Downtown event at the World Trade Center plaza.
