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j The Fight for a New So%u2666 Brooklyn Hiah SchoolAn ExclusivePHOENIXReport%u2666%u2666%u2666%u2666%u2666%u2666The disp uted Gas C om pany site is s till la rg e ly PHOENIX Photo by Vincent SmortoHigh School Saga: Little Action inthe Face of Overwhelming Need RVrnRRIMr mtl'IUSM nn__ IK.L . . . RYCORRINE COLEMANThe need for a new High School in the South Brooklyn community has been recognized for at least 13 years. During this time the site on the Gowanus Canal once owned by the Brooklyn Union Gas Co., has seemed the most desirable spot (or its building.The happy combination of need, availability, and desirability plus district Parent Association, community organization and social agency advocacy, has not, however, led to the seemingly logical next step %u2014 building of the school. -fast efforts before elected representatives, the District 15 Community School Board, and Board of Education officials have come to naught.A small but vocal minority of adversaries has apparently been able to persuade the authorities of the wisdom of rejection.But the pressure for the structure on the canal site has been mounting. With the John Jay situation becoming more crowded, and with the threatened closing of parochial high schools in the area,more community members are %u00ab!-*!---- .c iiu a u u g a a a u iv ia ia i l l u ie u r iv e toobtain the site. In addition, some past opponents have now moved tc the other side.The decision by the Gowanus High School%u2019s proponents to bring the question to the Feb. 20 meeting at the Board of Education%u2019s lie Livingston St. central arena, is evidence of the new, less patient mood.Ellen Michener, Chairwoman of the Ad Hoc Committee for a high school on the Gowanus, renewed her efforts towards acquisition of the canal site about a year and a half ago and has attracted renewed interest from earlier fighters. Mrs. Blanca Dilomis, Parents Association President of P.S. 29 during the 1950%u2019s, remembers the beginnings of agitation for a new high school during that time. John Jay, built in 1903 with a 3334 student capacity was already overcrowded a decade and a half ago. The early efforts in what was then district 12-14, headed by Superintendent John McCarthy, were to no avail, however.Pressure for the school was revived during the mid %u201960%u2019s when the newly formed Ad Hoc Gowanus Committee which became the South Brooklyn Development Council began its consideration of a waterside reclamation project on the banks of the canal. Committee members believed that inclusion of the desperately needed high school would enhance and spur the planning for an urban residential and cultural set up. During their investigations of the area the Gowanus Committee discovered that the Brooklyn Union Gas Co. was planning to dismantle the storage tanks they owned on the Fifth and Ninth St. canal site. With the information that Brooklyn Union was anxious to sell the property, the committee began the move to have the land designated for a public high school. During discussions with the Board of Education at that time the committee learned about other plans to locate a wholesale meat market on the site, (which was by then labeled the %u201cGas Works%u201d or the %u201cGas Site%u201d). The Ad*Hoc Committee then offered their proposal for the Gas Works High School during Sept. 1967.A year later, on Sept. 13, 1968, Bureau of Planning official Adrian Blumenfeld wrote to Chairman of the Site Selection Board, Bureau of the Budget, Frederick Hayes, %u2022recommending a study of the Gas Works proposal. According to Michener, copies of Blumenfeld%u2019s letter were sent to members of the Local School Board. .The highschool question was thus opened for discussion by the local board in the pre-decentralization days of 1968.During frequent talks in the board%u2019s executive sessions, members seemed to be reacting positively to the proposal, and one representative, Clark Simmons, is said to have asserted, %u201ca site that good is something you find once in a hundred years.%u201d Responding to the discussions, Community Planning Board Six, covering much of South Brooklyn; Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Gowanus, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights,recommended a feasibility study of the Gas Works site.Ellen Michener, who was by then a part of the group championing the building of a school on the Gowanus, recalls the public meeting-held by the Local School Board which was called to consider two sites for two area high schools. Though those sites submitted by the central Board of Education did not include the Gowanus location, the local board decided to include discussion of the gas works. After what appeared to be overwhelming support for the gas site, the next executive session of the local boardContinued on Page 9Parents, Community LeadersTake Up High School CauseEllen Michener, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for a Gowanus High School has been in the forefront of the South Brooklyn movement for better publfc education for more than a decade.A resident of Cobble Hill, Michener became active in the P.S. 29 Parents Association upon her first child%u2019s entrance inTo the elementary school on Kane and Henry Sts. During her term as President of the 29 P. A. she was instrumental in the move to set up an %u201copen corridor%u201d arrangement; to bring in bi-lingual teaching, and to create an atmosphere for parent involvement. Currently President of the I.S. 293 Parent TeacherM r\\ 2 %u2019 ^c iie n m itn en errAssociation, she is involved in the more difficult task of encouraging parent interest in the middle school situation.Before any of her four children were ready for high school, Michener looked ahead and discovered the dearth of such facilities in South Brooklyn. John Jay the one upper school in the district was already overcrowded; operating on split schedule, and promising to continue increasing its enrollment. She became a proponent of the Gowanus-Gas Works site for a local high school during the local school boardContinued on Page 14