Mayoral memory
The recent fight to save funding for two Downtown schools might still be fresh in Downtowners’ minds, but it’s all a distant memory to Mayor Bloomberg. Actually, it’s no memory at all. “I’ don’t know what school you’re talking about — I just don’t know the individual issue,” he told UnderCover when asked about the two schools at a recent press conference.
Bloomberg seems to have forgotten that his deputy mayor, Dan Doctoroff, signed an agreement with the community to build a new school in the neighborhood and an annex for P.S. 234 in exchange for high-rise residential developments on public land. He also seems to have forgotten that he attended the groundbreaking two months earlier for one of those towers. Of course, at that groundbreaking he neglected to mention his promise to build the schools, either.
Not everyone involved was so quick to forget. Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver still remembers how the city announced in February that it could no longer fund 21 capital school projects, including two Downtown schools, despite a written agreement promising the city would provide the needed funding. “He [Bloomberg] did a disservice to future administrations by showing they can renege on written agreements,” Silver said recently.
But the Bloomberg administration maintains that the deal was always contingent on state funding and no promises were ever broken. Bloomberg did note at the press conference that $13 billion in capital construction projects are now going forward because of his efforts. “Lots of things aren’t in that agreement,” said Bloomberg’s chief spokesperson, Stu Loeser. “Carbon life forms might be sustainable on Earth, there might be martial law – that’s not in the agreement either.”
I.S. Deutsche?
Speaking of new schools, Julie Menin, Community Board 1 chairperson, said Downtown is still going to need a zoned intermediate school and right now she has her eye on an eyesore — the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St., slated to be demolished to build a residential building across from the World Trade Center site.
She has started to discuss the idea with various officials and said it will be a long battle. Menin, the founder of Wall Street Rising, literally had the Deutsche in her sights when she told UnderCover about the idea during Rising’s tasting fundraiser at 7 W.T.C.
Menin chatted away with Stefan Pryor, president of the Deutsche building’s owner, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Rising’s president, Noah Pfefferblit, hosted the evening, which also drew Antonio Pérez, president of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Brooklyn Councilmember Bill de Blasio and Judge Kathryn Freed, Lower Manhattan’s former councilmember.
With all of the electrical food equipment and the power players admiring the views in Larry Silverstein’s new building, the developer’s staff had trouble keeping the power on. The lights went off on the floor during the event although the vaunted emergency stairwell lights and elevators did keep running.
Express wedding bells
Ronda Kaysen, 28, a Downtown Express reporter and a source extremely close to UnderCover, is to marry David Brinkerhoff, 35, a business correspondent for Reuters, on May 20 at Bucksteep Manor, a 19th century estate in Washington, Mass. The couple, who met Dec. 14, 2002 at a private benefit for a literary organization, will be honeymooning in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The bride grew up in Northern California and will be keeping her name professionally.
Congratulations!
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