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City Seeks PlansFor AtlanticTerminal AreaThe sun dawned warm and powerful over Park Slope last Saturday, Oct 20, paving tyte wayfor a strong and populous Energy Expo fair in the cavernous halls of John Jay High School at FifthStreet and Seventh Avenue.Hundreds of fairgoers came out to the fair, sponsored by the Park Slope Clergy Association,and were treated to exhibits, pamphlets and displays on conservation, solar energy systems andelectric vehicles, like the one brought by Con Ed pictured above%u2014LZGRichmond Returns To ImprovedTimes Plaza Hotel, Seeks FundingBY LIBBY HAYMANThe City%u2019s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will soon be* seeking proposals for two highly visible sites in the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area (ATURA) in downtown Brooklyn.The sites, numbers one and five in the large, multi-use area, are the block surrounded by Flatbush, Fourth Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and State Street and the block diagonally across Fourth Avenue, bounded by Flatbush, Atlantic, Fourth, and Pacific. The first block is now used by several stores, including Midtown Florist and a pawnbroker, the second is a BAM Parking Lot, also used for the Greenmarket.HPD%u2019s requirements for the sites have been submitted to Community Board Two%u2019s Planning and District Development Committee. Marsha Rimler, Chairman of the Committee, says that in discussion of the plans, at a meeting October 18, the committee was not prepared to vote on them. An agreement was reached with HPD, however, to form a subcommittee to work with HPD during (he selection of a developer. The committee would function similarly to the recent Block 207 Ad Hoc Committee, Rimler noted.The future of a number of the 20 AI'URA sites is still in question, particularly those which had been designated for relocation of Baruch College, a move which has received some opposition from City and State agencies in recent years. Even the sites designated for the new Atlantic Termincal are being developed slowly, with improvements of the Terminal itself now set by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, but other MTA intentions, such as an office building, shopping mall and supermarket still well into the future.For sites one and five, HPD will seek cither a single developer for both, or two developers. The sitewhere stores now stand is to be fully developed, but HPD%u2019s prelimiary specifications include the possibility of rehabilation of structures standing on the site. In the case of all new construction, the city would clear the site.The uses of the sites are not specified and the zoning law allows commercial, residential and institutional uses in the area. It will be required that developers obtain all financing from private sources and that no government rent subsidies be used.Anti-NukeEvents HeldThe North Brooklyn Mobilization for Survival will join the ranks of nuclear protestors this weekend, as it sponsors two big events for local residents.The first activity is an antinuclear forum and teach-in on October 26 at 4pm, with films and discussions on Hiroshima/Nagasaki, war games and testing, and Sam Lovcjoy%u2019s Small War against the nuclear industry. Following, at 8pm, there will be a panel discussion examining the political and economic aspects of the nuclear industry, as well as social costs and miscellaneous hazards at power plants. Panelists will be city Councilmember Ruth Messingcr, Dr. Irving Stillman from Mobilization%u2019s Scientific Task Force, and Igal Rodcnko, from the War Resistor%u2019s League And the SHAD Alliance. Entertainment will be provided by singer Tom Chapin (Harry Chapin%u2019s brother), and the forum and films will be held at the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity, Montague and Clinton Sts.On Oct. 28, the group will sponsor a walk from Columbia Heights and Montague St. across the Brooklyn Bridge at 10:30, out to meet a major anti-nuke rally at the World Trade Centers in Manhattan at noon.BY LINUS GELBERCongressman Fred Richmond came to Bocrum Hill last Monday to check out (he doings and progress at the Single-Room Occupancy Times Plaza hotel, standing at 510 Atlantic Avenue. His visit follows a similar tour held last month, in which he had warned hotel owner Abraham Ailon that, as he was appalled by the conditions in the building, he would follow up and make sure that headway was being made, leaving Ailon a month%u2019s grace to make repairs.\mond admitted, after walking through several floors and inspecting rooms with Ailon, staff members and Patricia Snyder and Lillian Beckford, the co-chairs of the Community Advisory Board to the affairs at the Times Plaza. %u2018%u2018I definitely sec a lot of improvement,\Richmond was called into the building last month by the Advisory Board, which has been following along trying to improve the circumstances of the hotel%u2019s tenants for many months. Last April, the Advisory Board put the Times Plaza on a non-referral status, which means that the city%u2019s social service network can no longer discharge welfare cases to the hotel. Previously, as many as 50 welfare referrals were sent each month, providing a solid base to the operation%u2019s finances.Although last month he assailed Ailon over a variety of conditons, Richmond now set the major priorities for bettering the Times Plaza in the social service realm as opposed to the physical plant. He looked specifically towards starting a city-sponsored nutritional program for the building%u2019s residents, as well as trying to find social service people to be in the building on nights and weekends, instead of the standard weekday hours that the city%u2019s Crisis Intervention Services staff now runs.\of life in this place up to some reasonable standards,%u201d Richmond asserted. \the top priority.\ments throughout the building, which include repainting corridors, refinishing bathroom and kitchen facilities and cleaning and replastering some rooms, owner Ailon took the occasion to ask Snyder to remove the no-referral, so that more money could come into the hotel to cover his expenses in renovation. Snyder gave no reply on the merits of the building, stating simply that the Advisory Board would be holding a meeting in early November to decide whether to keep up the nonreferral.\Ailon, and I did come back,%u201d Richmond said at the end of his visit, noting (hat he would start working on trying to get city and state funding for programs \awav,%u201dBoard Fails To Expand Grades;BY LIBBY HAYMANMembers of Community School Board 13 failed to pass a motion to add grades seven and eight to P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights at their October 16 meeting. Even though the motion was to vote on a zoning change the issue debated was the future of racial integration in the school. Some Board members said that a vote for the motion would reduce integration, but others in favor felt that it would strengthen it by keeping white children in the public school.The voting on the controversial resolution was four in favor, Moses Davis, Charles Pauli, Rev. Sylvester Benack and Mario De Falco; three against, School Board President Carmen Norat, Martha Graham, John Kemp and one abstention by Velmanette Montgomery; one member, Gertrude Jefferson was absent. A vote of five was necessary to approve an action on the nine member board, and it is clear that the item will be brought up again at the Board's next meeting. Proponents stated that they hoped liiai fuii a t t e n d a n c e o r a change in position of any of the opposing members would bring a different result.THE FINAL SAYIf a motion in favor of adding twogrades to P.S. 8 is eventually passed the City%u2019s Board of Education will have to judge the matter on the basis of the suitability of the building, the advisability of going against a board policy in favor of junior high or intermediate schools and its possible effects keeping the school integrated.An issue on people%u2019s minds in (his debate is the countdown to the next Community School Board elections, set for May, 1980. Traditionally, Brooklyn Heights has dominated the voting. A study done several years ago by Executive Assistant Jon Levine, before he was employed by the District showed that, although only 16 percent of the District%u2019s population lives in Brooklyn Heights, 41 percent of the votes in the 1975 election were cast there. Levine did not have comparable statistics for the more recent 1977 School Board election.As the Board%u2019s voting was completed at the October 16 meeting, members of the audience called out in anger, \ou j;puov.u to iv^pTCSCiil US, Uthought which will be on tveryone%u2019s minds next May.DEBATING THE ISSUEThe Board meeting was held in the auditorium of the school, atHicks and Middagh in Brooklyn Heights, where most of the hundred or so people in the audience were parents favoring the move. Debate on the zoning change, which has been supported by numbers of parents for some years, focussed on the problem parents face in finding good public junior high education for their children.Many parents spoke up about the success of P.S. 8 in achieving racial integration and high quality education, (just over half of the student body is white). They talked about difficulties in getting junior high aged children safely to Satellite West, an Alternative Junior High in the Navy Yard vicinity, a school created to answer the needs of those same parents. They also pointed out that Satellite West would probably not be a big enough program to hold all of their junior high children if all Brooklyn Heights parents chose to use it.OPPOSING THE MOVEParents reacted strongly to statements by Board members opposing. i%u2014 ... . - - .. n i . i r< i* n v. i n u i i w u , t * u u m u \\j i a u a i l l , awhite Board member from Prospect Heights charged that the move has a \repugnant.\She noted that the school's PTA had argued in aDebates Integrationprinted statement that \housing units\in the Heights would bring in many potential P.S. 8 students who would be best served by a K - 8 school.A black Board member, John Kemp, ardently opposed the motion on the basis of his responsibility to \said the plan would create \semi-private school, with no place in the plan to house our black children.%u201dFAVORING THE CHANGEThe two Board members who spoke in favor of the motion were P.S. parents, one of them, Moses Davis, a black, the other, Charles Pauli, a white. They urged the Board, \something, we should give it to them if it is in our power.%u201dThe lengthy audience discussion, included comments by District 13 parents who stated that P.S. 8 was being favored over other District Schools and Jim Masters, President of the Brooklyn Heights Association, presented his group%u2019s strong support for the plan.YpJ---------- fc 4---. ------------ %u201e LI--- i vtutuiiL iu, m u iiig u u iL ij , u. uiuenBoard member who has run for political office in the past, abstained from voting, saying she was \motion, but doesn%u2019t want a changemade at P. S. 8 \the problem of the Junior High%u2019s in the rest of the district.%u201dPossibly decisive in the failure of the motion was the absence of Board member Gertrude Jefferson, who had submitted notice that she could not attend because of illness in her family. She says that she is \this point, and \is best.%u201dDIFFICULT ISSUEThe integration issue is a difficult one. District 13 admin.%u2022>- trators, including the Superintendent, Dr. Jerome Harris, and Executive Assistant Jon Levine, say that only Satellite West would stand to lose white students if P.S. 8 added grades, since there are almost no white students in other junior highs in the District.Not only do many white parents in District 13 send their children to private school or to Junior Highs in Manhattan, but the only elementary school besides P.S. 8 which has a substantial number of white students, P.S. 282 in Park Slope, is a feeder school to Junior Highs in District 15, specifically J.H.S. 51 on Fifth Ave. in Park Slope, which last year was 57 percent Hispanic. 30 percent black, 10 percent white, and 3 percent Asian.October 25, 1979, The PHOENIX. Page 3