As Preschoolers Are Shown the Door, Parents Cry Foul Play
June 3, 2007
By DAN LEVIN
TWENTY-SIX years ago, a ragtag collection of artists and working-class parents united to transform the decrepit Public School 122 into both a day care center for neighborhood children and a funky refuge for painters and performers.
But now, with the impending relocation of the Children’s Liberation Day Care Center on First Avenue and East Ninth Street, these onetime East Village allies are feuding. Angry parents and others say three artist collectives are joining with City Hall to elbow out the nursery — a claim the artists deny.
Last Tuesday, to protest the relocation, a rowdy collection of children and parents marched down Avenue A to a meeting of the local community board. Preschoolers waved signs, beat drums and held hands to show their solidarity — and to safely cross the street. A toddler, strapped in her stroller, joined the chant of “Save Our Day Care,” while a trio of 5-year-old boys walked hand in hand, singing an anthem of resistance, “Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights!”
The city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, which owns the P.S. 122 Community Center building, is moving all the occupants out over a four-year period, starting with the nursery in late July, so that the crumbling structure can be brought up to fire code and otherwise improved. The Administration for Children’s Services, which finances the day care center, is relocating its nearly 80 children to two nearby sites on the Lower East Side that it says are larger, closer to transportation and currently below capacity.
“P.S. 122 is just not safe, and we need to maximize the use of all our facilities,” said Sharman Stein, an agency spokeswoman, adding that if parents choose not to send their children to the new locations, the agency will provide them with a voucher for private day care in their neighborhood.
But parents are fuming because the other groups that use the building — Performance Space 122, Painting Space 122, the Mabou Mines theater company and AIDS Services Center, a nonprofit group — will be allowed to return. For years, these parents say, the three arts groups have slowly expanded into the nursery’s rooms, and the day care center’s permanent relocation, they insist, comes after years of artists’ lobbying City Hall for more room for galleries and performances.
Anne Dennin, the executive director of Performance Space 122, disavowed responsibility. “The arts groups don’t have anything to do with who stays or who goes,” she said. “We are tenants, too.”
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who represents the area, has sided with Children’s Liberation. She threatens to withhold $3 million allocated for P.S. 122 if the day care center is not allowed to return to the building.
Byron Figueras, a 25-year-old alumnus of Children’s Liberation who was on hand for the demonstration, said the extra distance to the other day care centers would be an added strain for many of the parents. With an eye on the pint-sized protesters refreshing themselves with juice boxes and cookies, he added, “Nine more blocks makes a big difference when you have little feet.”