Doreen Henderson said she was assaulted last year in front of the Davis Street School. She said she watched as the school’s rubber playground was gradually torn up by vandals, leaving black spots. Next year, the school will be rebuilt from the ground up, and Henderson hopes that the improvements will include better security.
Henderson said as much at Tuesday night’s community meeting at Davis Street School. Some twenty neighbors turned out to look over the plans for the new school and to voice their suggestions and concerns.
Neighborhood security emerged as the number one issue at the meeting, with traffic issues coming in a close second, thanks to a first-time community agitator.
The Davis Street Magnet School is to be torn down and rebuilt starting in April of 2009. The arts-oriented school will be expanded from the existing 45,000 square feet to over 83,000 square feet, with new facilities for art and music along with performance and gallery spaces.
After a series of meetings with concerned parties, including the local community and alders, the basic design for the new building has been worked up. Architect Christopher Roof gave a PowerPoint presentation (pictured) of the plans at Tuesday night’s meeting. The blueprints include a new playground and a redesigned field. Roof’s presentation was followed by questions and answers with school construction officials.
Henderson, who lives directly across from the school, said that it would be a waste of money to build a nice new playground if it’s going to suffer the same fate as the last one.
“They tore it up!” said Henderson, explaining that teenagers, burned holes in the artificial rubber ground cover and tore trees out of the ground. “We got the hoodlums coming from everywhere!” she exclaimed. “Why throw more tax dollars into this if it’s just going to get torn apart?”
Sue Weisselberg (pictured), school construction coordinator, said that she hoped that people would take better care of a new building and new facilities.
“If they don’t, what are you gonna do?” asked Henderson.
Her question wasn’t answered directly. Neighborhood Alderman Sergio Rodriguez (pictured) said, “this is a legitimate concern,” and suggested a police representative come to community meetings to hear about such issues. Weisselberg said that she would work to make that happen.
After the meeting Corbin and Mary Pressey (pictured listening to school construction program manager Claude Watt), who live nearby, echoed Henderson’s concerns. They said that they’ve witnessed the playground being misused by teenagers and that they’d like to see attention to the neighborhood that goes beyond just the construction period.
“They need to not just build it and leave,” said Mary.
She wants to see a more consistent police presence, not just when there are problems. “It’s like they just put out the fires and that’s it,” she said.
Corbin didn’t think that the meeting would lead to any changes in the plans. “Your input is nil. It’s already confirmed,” he said.
Asked if she was satisfied with the meeting, Henderson replied, “No, absolutely not.”
Standing outside the school, she pointed out the black spots on the playground where the “hoodlums” had torn and burnt the ground cover. She also pointed out the lone light at the far end of the field, responsible for lighting the area after dark. Henderson would like to see better lighting and oversight for the playground, and a speedier police response for the area.
Despite her complaints, Henderson said, “I’m very optimistic because they have a lot of talk going on.”
Traffic Jamming
Architect Christopher Roof explained that one of the biggest issues addressed by the new design is the daily traffic pileup during student pick-up and drop-off. Davis Street turns to bumper-to-bumper gridlock every morning as cars and school buses clog the road to let off students. This has been a source of frustration for the neighborhood.
The new plans create a bus pull-off area, where school buses can load and unload without obstructing traffic.
The plans also call for an expansion of the parking area behind the school and the creation of a 28-foot-wide access road that will ring the property. It’s this access road that prompted Alek Juskevice, of Fountain St, to engage in his first ever community activism.
Juskevice is concerned that the road, which will run behind his property, will “take privacy from my backyard.” He said he also thinks that too much of the new school design is aimed toward cars rather than students.
Juskevice was on the pavement before the meeting, knocking on neighbors’ doors to drum up opposition to the ring road. He came to the meeting equipped with drawings and papers laying out his case.
“I would like to see no parking back there, no roads,” he said, taking the laser pointer from Roof to illustrate his point. Juskevice said that teachers could park their cars on the street.
After the meeting, Juskevice said, “I object to the whole notion of designing for the car and not for the child.”
Others disagreed with Juskevice, arguing that the new plan would aid the flow of traffic on the often jammed-up street. One woman, who said she’s lived on Davis Street since 1954, said that she “can’t even get out of the driveway” some mornings and is worried about what would happen if her 89-year-old mother had an emergency, “Godforbid.”
“This is a serious, serious problem,” she said, “and until you’ve lived here as long as I have, you’ll never understand.”
Juskevice has lived in the neighborhood for five years. He sends his 9‑year-old son to the Cold Spring School, a private day school on Chapel Street.
“I didn’t realize until this meeting that these people are furious,” he said.
Even though he’s “never done anything like this before,” Juskevice said that he’s planning to draw up a petition against the ring road. He thinks that a more creative answer to traffic problems can be found.
“The only solution is more asphalt?” he asked rhetorically.