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Street Wars: Schools Take Recess to the Road
Street WarsA weekly series on the battle for space on New York's streets and sidewalks.
The Low-Budget Back-to-School Supply That City Kids LoveIt's simple, really: You'll just need a metal barricade. Maybe some traffic cones. That's how you make an entire school full of children happy. From stickball to double Dutch, playing in the street has long been a rite of passage in New York City. But for the first time, the Department of Transportation program, Open Streets for Schools, has established a legal framework to close off streets for play and to support schools through the initiative, which became law in the spring. This month, there will be 71 streets closed to traffic and open for children at schools across the city — a record number since the program launched during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Though traffic fatalities in New York have declined in the last 30 years, this year, pedestrian fatalities are up. Enthusiasm for the new open school streets is already high. Starting this month, P.S. 28 Mount Hope Centennial School in the Bronx is annexing part of Anthony Avenue outside its building once a week. The school tested out blocking off the street to cars once a week in May. "The students were absolutely in love," said Elise Banegas, a community school director at P.S. 28. The school is undergoing construction that may take five or six years, making its small yard unusable. But during the street pilot, Banegas saw the joy children derived from just having space. "They were so happy to be able to go outside, burn some steam and just have, like, that old-school feel of being able to go outside and enjoy yourself during lunch time," she said. P.S. 28 teamed up with Street Lab, a nonprofit that creates and shares programs for public space across the city. Leslie Davol, Street Lab's co-founder and executive director, says that of all the work the organization has done, working with schools has been the most meaningful. "These students, they're like, 'Oh, my god, we've taken over the street!'" she said. "It's incredibly powerful." Street Lab helps schools apply for permits. But the group also arrives at schools with programming and gear: mobile obstacle courses; a pop-up reading room consisting of a bookcase on wheels; building blocks. "They also have an art station," Banegas said, "and little cameras that you can take pictures with." There are multiple ways a school can organize an Open Street. Some just put a metal barrier at each end of the block for about half an hour in the morning and afternoon, when students are being picked up and dropped off. Other schools use the barriers for a few hours in the middle of the day so students can have recess outdoors. And some schools close the street to cars for the entire school day. While the street is closed to through traffic, residents with cars are still able to access the block. And it's not just public schools — some of the fanciest private schools in the city also participate. This month is the beginning of the second year that The École, a French-American bilingual school on East 22nd Street, has had barriers out on the street. The head of the school, Jean-Yves Vesseau, called it "a game changer for us in terms of how we organize our recesses." He added: "The kids and staff love it." Friends Seminary on East 13th Street has been participating for five years. The initiative "has been invaluable in fostering play, community, and connection," said the head of the school, Robert Lauder, who goes by Bo.
The freedom to go outside and play in the fresh air during the school day can be especially meaningful. Residents in the area around P.S. 28 Mount Hope — in the Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx — are among those with the highest asthma rates in the city. Banegas said that among administrators in the Bronx, word has spread "like wildfire," with staffers telling friends across town: "You need this program in your school." While the metal barriers are provided at no cost from the Department of Transportation, participating in the Open Streets program involves planning and paperwork. That's where nonprofits focused on the use of streets come in. Sabina Sethi Unni, a schools planner for Open Plans, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes a people-first street culture, said her group has helped 22 schools apply. Simplifying the process is on the group's list of recommendations for the program. "We know that school administrators are so overburdened," Unni said. Requesting a street closure relies on community buy-in, so Unni will also do lots of outreach. "I'll speak at community board meetings," she said. "I'll talk to neighborhood moms over doughnuts before school starts. Go to P.T.A. meetings. I'll talk to principals, to parents, to teachers." She also speaks to elected officials and obtains letters of support. One sticking point is often parking, or car access to the street, including for teachers. When a street near a school is not closed to cars, the combination of children running around and vehicles idling for pick up or drop off can be dangerous, Unni said. "Dangerous for not just kids — dangerous for pedestrians who live and work nearby," she said. "It's also an air pollution and asthma issue when you have so much congestion." Mike Robert Horenstein's 6-year-old son, Sol, is an incoming first grader at P.S. 290 The Manhattan New School on East 82nd Street. Horenstein said he likes that the street is closed off during the school day for Open Streets. But one morning when they were walking in the street by the school, a parked car scared them when it pulled out into the street, even though a traffic-blocking barrier was in place, and "went by too quickly," Horenstein said. "Nobody wants to see an S.U.V. stop short, or maneuver slowly after being too fast, when there are kindergarten-age children in the middle of the street," he said. The driver apologized. "But it's important that residents be reminded, on a regular basis, somehow, to take care," Horenstein said. And though he wishes that schools, in general, had more options for space, he acknowledged: "This is New York City. You have to make do with what you can get." Figuring out how to strike a balance between the needs of children and people who want to park on the block where they live is tricky. Unni, of Open Plans, stressed that residents with cars or who use Access-A-Ride should know: "If you need to drive down the street, you can drive down the street." "This is like not a program that is going to take anything away from you," she said she tells drivers. "It's just generating more opportunities for communal spaces. For safe spaces." Banegas, whose Bronx students play outside one day a week, already wants to expand the program to three days. "Kids deserve to be able to go outside and have that experience," she said.
The history of women on the front lines of school safetyIn the 1920s, as cars became more prevalent in the city, so did crashes involving children. At first, police officers were assigned to monitor street safety nears schools. In the mid-1950s, an effort to install civilian crossing guards in New York City was started. Most often, they were women. In September 1954, The New York Times spoke with a newly initiated crossing guard named Eileen Viggiano on her first day of work at P.S. 115 in the Bronx. She was part of a boroughwide crossing guard corps that included 64 women and nine men, dressed in blue and carrying whistles.
According to Viggiano, the younger children were "more obedient than the older ones." In May 1955, 50 women trained to become the first civilian crossing guards in Manhattan. The guards generally worked three to four hours a day and received $1.50 an hour (about $17.62 today). Putting adult women between children and cars mostly worked, but crossing guards were sometimes injured or killed. Some were hit by school vehicles. In 1994, a crossing guard in Queens was killed when she was hit by an S.U.V. and thrown 45 feet. Another Queens crossing guard, Lorraine Elliot, who died on duty in February 1980, was given a police funeral. Last year, a crossing guard who was killed by a car while on the job in Queens was posthumously promoted. Enjoying our Street Wars series? Tell us what you like or how we could improve: streetwars@nytimes.com
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