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PS 51 Secures Crossing Guard, Still Waiting for Street Light Change

By DNAinfo Staff on February 18, 2011 3:12pm

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HELL'S KITCHEN — PS 51 has secured a crossing guard to help students make it safely to lunch off-campus, but parents are still waiting on a traffic light change.

The 100-year-old Hell's Kitchen elementary school, located at 520 W. 45th St., will eventually be replaced by a new building in the backyard. Because of pending demolition and excavation work, students have already lost access to their schoolyard lunch space, and will soon begin traveling to nearby Matthew-Palmers Park.

But getting to Matthews-Palmers requires kids to cross a dangerous intersection at 45th St. and Tenth Avenue — parents say hazards include the giant Hess gas station and a nearby taxi parking lot, not to mention the looming arrival of scores of construction trucks.

Principal Nancy Sing-Bock announced Thursday that the construction task force set up by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's office has now secured a crossing guard to man the intersection during lunch hours.

However, another key request of the task force is still pending with the Department of Transportation.

Many parents and other members of the school community want an adjustment to the traffic light that would let a few extra seconds elapse between the time the light in one direction turns red and the light in the other direction turns green.

The intent is to give pedestrians a little extra time to make themselves visible in the intersection before drivers hit the gas.

The announcements — PS 51 will also get a batch of new air conditioners — came at the start of a long, emotional meeting with Community Board 4's Health, Housing and Human Services Committee.

About 20 parents reiterated their fears about how the project will impact the health and well-being of their children. The new school is just a fraction of total construction slated for the block — this summer, the Gotham Organization will break ground on a huge affordable and market-rate housing development.

Some worry about how construction across the block might impact air quality at the school. Many also say that the noise from construction will impact kids' academic performance at a critical time in their development.

They'd like to see air quality testing inside the school, before and during the construction process, as well as sound barriers.

But for one group of parents, who call themselves Fight for 51, the only acceptable solution is to relocate the school for the duration of the three-year construction process.

"There's a very deep level of mistrust here," said parent Jill Novenski, whose concerns stem in part from the fact that both she and her son Thorin already suffer from asthma. "We're having to fight for very basic things."