PS 166 on West 89th Street, one school where deteriorating lead paint was found.
Deteriorating lead paint has been found in over 900 public elementary schools throughout New York City, including some on the Upper West Side. The paint, which is “chipped, peeling, or otherwise deteriorating” potentially poses a threat to children and the city has vowed to make the classrooms safe before the start of the school year, according to Chalkbeat.
According to a list from Chalkbeat, available and searchable on this page, among the UWS schools found to have at least one classroom that tested positive for lead are PS 84 on 92nd Street and PS 166 on 89th Street. There is also information on the site about lead levels from water faucets.
Parents can also report concerns here.
Community Education Council 3, a parent group that oversees local schools, will meet about the findings on Wednesday night.
Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019
CEC3 Business and Calendar Meeting
6:30 PM
P.S. 163 – 163 W. 97th St.
Great they finally tested the PS, but what about the MS and HS? They did not test all the lunchrooms, hallways, offices, bathrooms etc. Although this is for lead, they should have also tested at the same time for asbestos in the ceiling tiles and linoleum on the floors. Must of the floors in schools from before the mid 70’s are full of it. In many of the schools there are broken up floor and/or ceiling tiles.
The best thing is that there is now ay they can fix any of this before school starts. Let alone with the dept of Ed contracting system it will take years
Tear them down and build new state of the art facilities. The footprint is for a 20th century city.
New York is old. The buildings are decrepit. Stop throwing good money to bad buildings. Asbestos, lead enough said. Tear them down now.
Why is it that every year, just before a new school year this city finds something wrong with public school buildings? Didn’t anyone notice the peeling paint in May?
B Thompson
No. Because if they addressed it in June, then they would not be able to engage contractors on super premium time to resolve an issue before school starts. Seems to me almost every year PS 166 is quiet for all of July and then in mid-August they start working 7 days a week doing one project or another
I would guess that it is very unlikely that the city is budgeted to construct a new school to replace each of our many aging school buildings with their crumbling infrastructure, lack of air conditioning, toxic materials, etc.
The city should bring in a developer and allow them to build a residential tower with a new school at its base. If necessary, give them a height variance to allow them to foot the entire bill with no cost to the city. Tower could include a percentage of affordable housing, school should be large enough to replace the existing capacity plus the additional capacity required by the added residents. If the building is landmarked, keep the facade only at the base.
I am not a developer, architect, and do not work in the real estate industry. I am just an UWS resident for decades who believes that since change is inevitable we should try to make it work for us.
The city loves giving permits for new high end residential towers but fix their crumbling schools? Ehhh pass that problem onto the next round of politicians. The city should make new towers or building conversions contingent on funding for schools close-by. Or even make the first 5 floors of the building a school and allow the developer to go 5 floors higher than normally would be allowed. There are ways to do this.
It would get NIMBYed to death.
NIMBYs are afraid of any building taller than 10 stories.
Does anyone really believe this will be 100% resolved in less than 1 month? When the city failed to resolve similar lead problems in NYCHA, for years??
Also, the lead pipe water problems in any school have been “resolved” by DOE turning off those faucets/fountains. Not actually fixing anything, changing pipes, or installing filters. So in many common areas and classrooms, there is no running water for drinking or handwashing or cleaning. This has been going in at my daughter’s schools for years.
IMO DOE should not be in charge of the remediation as they have failed miserably. It should be done by an independent entity that can clean up NYCHA too. Some kind of safety superhero organization.