By Suzanne Ma
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
DOWNTOWN — After months of battling education officials, TriBeCa parents living across the street from the much sought after P.S. 234 won the right to send their kids there after a new school zoning plan was passed Wednesday night.
For months, anxious residents living just steps away from P.S. 234 in luxury condominiums at 101 Warren St. and in a subsidized housing complex at 89 Murray St. have loudly protested a plan that would have had their children traveling blocks away each morning to attend P.S. 89.
Many claimed they'd moved specifically to the neighborhood so their kids could go to P.S. 234.
Several meetings had ended in nasty shouting matches, as parents fought for the right night to send their kids to an elementary school that has one of the best reputations in the city.
In the end, the District 2 Community Education Council voted to zone families living west of Church Street for P.S. 234, while a portion of southern TriBeCa will now send their children to P.S. 89.
"It's the best day of my life," said Anneliese Pfeil, a TriBeCa Mom who wanted to enrol her four-year-old son at P.S. 234 in the fall and buried her tear-streamed face in her hands shortly after the vote was final.
"I'm almost as happy as I was on my wedding day.
Pfeil said she recently moved into 101 Warren specifically so she could send her child to the school that was just "30 feet away."
"I can literally look right into P.S. 234's classrooms from my window," Pfeil said. "To be told that my son could not be a part of that community, that he would be denied from attending that school was something I could not let go."
The plan does leave residents in eastern TriBeCa, the Financial District and Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City, without the option of attending the school. Many, who were hoping that the education council would vote for an alternative zoning plan, were dismayed and left the auditorium quietly and quickly.
Many of them had expressed concern about the students who may now face a commute through the NYPD security zone in lower Manhattan during the 9/11 terror trials.
"They're going to be shutting down roads all over the place," council member Beth Cirone said. "I don't know how parents will get their kids to school unless federal marshals escort them."
Wednesday's decision comes just in time for next fall’s kindergarten registration, which starts Feb. 1.
TriBeCa children west of Church St. will now be zoned for P.S. 234, while children in east Tribeca and the Seaport will attend the Spruce Street School. Children in the northern parts of Battery Park City and Gateway Plaza will attend P.S. 89, and in the Financial District south of Liberty St. and Battery Park City south of Albany St., children will attend P.S./I.S. 276.
