Frustration at Lack of Sites to Ease School Crowding in Sunset Park
“For years, elementary schools in Sunset Park have been bursting at the seams, provoking desperate measures. Children who live a short walk from schools get bused as far away as Park Slope. As reported last year, P.S. 169 at 7th Avenue and 43rd Street was holding lunch from 10:45 a.m. to 2:20 p.m. to accommodate a student population 415 students above its target capacity of 1,158. It closed the art room and used closets as offices.
The neighborhood population keeps growing; low-rise Sunset Park, where many families are doubled up, is the second-most crowded neighborhood in the city, according to the Furman Center. Not only does Brooklyn’s Chinatown, at the neighborhood’s eastern border, continue to expand, Sunset Park remains a magnet for Latinos, among others. Meanwhile, relatively affordable row houses and co-ops beckon those priced out of Park Slope or Bay Ridge, making Sunset Park a gentrification frontier.
The lack of new schools can’t be blamed on money. The School Construction Authority has long had funds for two new buildings with 1,196 seats in the Sunset Park section of District 15. (Another portion of of Sunset Park is in District 20.)”
Oder, Norman. Brooklyn Bureau 15 January 2014.