New 560-seat elementary school to be built in Greenwich Village

According to mayor Michael Bloomberg, schools chancellor Joel Klein, the New York Foundling Charitable Corporation and the Rudin Family, the longtime Greenwich Village headquarters of New York Foundling will be transformed into an elementary school serving the children of district two. Working with the Rudin Family, which is overseeing the development of St. Vincent's hospital nearby, the School Construction Authority and New York Foundling reached an agreement in which the new school will occupy the lower six floors of the building while New York Foundling will maintain offices in the upper floors. New York Foundling will use the proceeds from the sale to build a new home in Yonkers for its world-renowned pediatric center. Additional funds will be used to reduce the case loads of its social workers caring for children in foster care and to serve as a down payment for the construction of New York Foundling's new charter school in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx. "The partnership with New York Foundling and the Rudin Family builds on our successful efforts to create new schools and add seats in overcrowded areas across the city like lower Manhattan," Bloomberg said. "From the new annex opened last year at PS 234 to the Battery Park City school and Beekman school projects, downtown neighborhoods have benefited tremendously from the public-private partnerships and other innovative solutions we've used to create seats for students who need them." "Throughout the past year of our work in Greenwich Village, we heard concerns from the elected officials, community, and nearby PS 41 about the problem of overcrowding in the community's public schools. So when this opportunity presented itself, it was a clear win-win for everyone involved," said William Rudin, president of Rudin Management. "We have always maintained an unwavering commitment to listening and responding to the community's concerns. We are thrilled that the chance arrived to address one of this city's greatest concerns: the education of our children." After New York Foundling put its building up for sale earlier this year, the Rudin Family approached the School Construction Authority about the possibility of creating a school in the building. In the course of re-developing St. Vincent's, the Rudin Family and project partner St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers received extensive feedback from the Greenwich Village community concerning school overcrowding. The Rudin family, with the School Construction Authority, developed and proposed the concept of transforming the bottom six floors of the building into a new school while allowing New York Foundling to continue to headquarter its offices in the same building. As part of the proposal, the Rudin Family worked with the School Construction Authority to determine whether the New York Foundling headquarters had appropriate features and elements. The new school will be locally zoned and serve pre-K through 5th grade students with 560 available seats. The School Construction Authority will close on the property by 2012.