Cashing Out
Taking the cliché, “You can’t get something for nothing,” to heart, the Battery Park City Authority and the B.P.C. Parks Conservancy will soon start charging for 11 of the 35 previously free activities for kids and adults at the Community Center at Stuyvesant High School.
Starting in May, Preschool Art, Children’s Gardening, Amateur Naturalists and a host of other programs come with a $5 per class cover charge tacked onto them. Since some classes require an eight session commitment, our memory of fifth grade times tables puts that at more like $40 a class. Rest assured, says Leticia Remauro, a spokesperson for the authority, it’s still a steal. “The fees are nominal and they’ve been kept so because it’s the first time the authority is charging,” she told UnderCover. “It is kept so to make sure that the activities are quality and that they can continue to be so.”
Some folks are less than thrilled by the new charges.
Remauro, however, insists the authority has decided to charge B.P.C. residents as a way to protect them. “People coming from all over the city utilize these services,” she said. “People who live in Battery Park City will find it quite fair that [people from other neighborhoods] provide a portion of the costs for these programs.” B.P.C. residents will not be exempt from the new charges.
Twenty-four fun-filled programs, including Go Fish and Teen Drumming, will remain as free as a bird. The programs that were never free to begin with, like the pool and gym memberships, will stay that way.
Congressional Prattle
U.S. Cong. Jerry Nadler, one of Downtown’s blunter reps, got short-shifted at Thursday’s House debate protesting the Election Day voting snafus in Ohio (Nadler doesn’t think the irregularities affected the outcome but he does want them investigated.) By the time California Dem., Barbara Lee, yielded the floor to Nadler, he had only 30 seconds to rattle off his list of grievances, although the rest of his remarks were entered into the record. Alas, C-Span fanatics everywhere will have to resign themselves to reading his speech, where he planned to say, “The right to vote has been stolen from qualified voters… We are told to get over it. How do you get over having your vote stolen?” Forget voting, how do you get over being gaveled away?
It’s a Steal!
For those of you who haven’t checked your rent bill lately, “Soho and Tribeca are now the most expensive areas in the entire country to rent a pad,” reports the New York Post. Who knew? The whole world is lining up to pose as an “artist” and live in a $6,000-a-month loft. And here we thought everyone was clambering to live in Hoboken.
School Crossing
Battery Park City tots have been dodging unruly traffic on their way to the school bus stop at South End Ave. and Rector Place and Community Board 1 is poised to honk their horns about it. The board plans to ask the Dept. of Transportation to check out the notorious intersection and maybe go so far as to install a stop sign and crosswalk. “We should get D.O.T. to take a look at it,” said B.P.C. committee chairperson, Anthony Notaro. B.P.C. residents need not hold their breaths, however, the sluggish Dept. probably won’t get to the issue for two to three months, Notaro said.
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