|
Editorial Play Hooky? The mayor wanted kids to play hooky for the Yankee Parade on Monday. One might be tempted to let Giuliani, the city's chief Yankee fan, have his fun and to think that Schools Chancellor Harold Levy, who was unhappy with Giuliani's position, should lighten up. But the mayor's concern for the city's schoolchildren is, shall we say, rather selective. When Community School Board 10 invited the mayor to its overcrowding hearing at PS 246 a couple of weeks ago, school board president Oliver Koppell received a form letter saying the mayor couldn't come. It also oddly thanked Mr. Koppell for his support, which of course had not been offered in the first place. Giuliani didn't think that a public hearing in the city's second most overcrowded school district even warranted an appearance by a subordinate. If the mayor really showed that he cared about creating the optimal learning conditions for our kids, we might not mind his usurping the authority of a thousand-plus school principals. But Giuliani, in slashing the capital budget for new school construction throughout his seven-year tenure, has shown his true school colors. This is not to say that field trips (and keep in mind that the mayor was sanctioning truancy, not a teacher-guided learning experience) are not educational. However, if parents and teachers are looking for a learning experience outside the classroom, we suggest Tuesday, Nov. 14. That's when the City Council will hold a hearing at City Hall to discuss the fate of the Kingsbridge Armory. The mayor thinks the armory is better suited to shopping than schools. Many local residents feel differently. Can there be a more suitable educational experience than for kids to watch their local government at work on an issue that directly affects them? The same subway that goes to Yankee Stadium stops at City Hall. Painting Underground Last spring, Norwood resident Lyn Pyle received a phone call from the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. That city agency, apparently acting at the request of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), was interested in painting a mural on the filtration plant to be constructed under Van Cortlandt Park. Note the italicized word in the previous sentence. In rationalizing the park site for the plant, the DEP has steadfastly maintained the fiction that it will be built underground, though it is more accurate to say that grass will be planted on top of a 30-foot building. Anyway, Pyle, who has been an active opponent of the plant and produced a video about it when the city was planning to build it at the Jerome Park Reservoir, said the Department of Cultural Affairs contacted her to find out if local kids would deface the plant. She told them she "wasn't going to organize that kind of destruction of an artist's work, but I wouldn't try to stop it and it wouldn't surprise me if something like that happened." DEP spokesman Geoffrey Ryan did some checking and couldn't come up with any information about such a request. And the city's Department of Cultural Affairs didn't call us back. So, we have not confirmed if they were, or are still, planning to go through with such a project. Now anyone who reads this paper knows we're not fans of vandalism and graffiti, but it's hard not to laugh at the absurdity of the city being concerned about the defacement of a mural when it plans to blast a crater in the middle of our community, or at the idea of a painting no one will ever see, if we're somehow expected to believe this "underground" nonsense. Hopefully, when an appellate judge hears the case the community has brought to prevent the city from building in the park, probably sometime in December, we'll all have the last laugh.
News | Opinion | Schools | Features | Ongoing
Story | Home |
