The communities of Lower Manhattan Community School (LMC) and NYC Charter School of the Arts (CSA) implore the City of New York to close New Street to vehicles for the safety of their students, families, staff, and faculty during arrival, dismissal, and lunchtime when school is in session.

For several years, LMC and CSA have had exclusive use of the one block length of New Street between Exchange Place and Beaver Street so that students could arrive and depart from the school building safely.

The schools' official address is 26 Broadway, a building that houses a total of four schools and over 1200 students. Two of the schools, LMC and CSA, constitute more than half of the student population of the building. These two schools use 75 and 81 New Street for entry and egress.

The building is a vertical campus with a shared gymnasium, no play yard or outdoor space of any kind. While students have the option to go out for lunch on certain days, the majority of LMC’s 385 students congregate in the cafeteria, which cannot support the CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines for that many students.

The CDC also recommends that schools use spaces outside of the cafeteria for mealtime, such as outdoor seating, to maximize physical distance as much as possible, because children are less likely to be exposed to COVID-19 during outdoor activities, even without the use of masks.

In response to 9/11, Active Vehicle Barriers (AVB) were installed throughout Lower Manhattan. New Street has two AVB’s, one at the southern end of the street just north of Beaver Street and another directly in front of the LMC entrance.

Each morning, nearly 700 students travel New Street to access their schools. Each afternoon, those students empty onto New Street all at once. Just one car triggers the AVB's to rise several feet above the ground with little notice to those standing or walking in proximity, forcing students, parents, and caregivers to cram together on narrow sidewalks so they don’t fall into the cavern of the AVB or get hit by the car.

Since the beginning of the school year, there has been a substantial increase in thru-traffic and construction activity - all activating the AVB's to rise and fall again and again. Each morning students and parents are forced to dodge large forklifts, heavy-duty flatbed trucks, drivers, and hard-hats making deliveries to a nearby office building just to get to school.

This constant activity, and the resulting scarcity of space, have caused conflict. On two occasions, workers have verbally attacked students as young as 10 years old.

Please sign and share this petition so that the children of the New Street schools can get to-and-from school safely and enjoy meals without fear.

Sincerely,

Reagon & Mar Fitzgerald • LMC Student & Parent