REMEMBER: THE EFFORTS TO RESTORE P.S. 186

P.S 186 is quickly being renovated now on 145th Street almost 30 years after the old school house was sold to a local church non-profit.  The government's goal was to have a new owner restore the building for community use but somewhere in the past decade or so plans for demolition had been offered up to replace the majestic old structure with a high-rise condo.  Preservationist tried to get the building protected from bulldozers but internal CB9 landmark committee votes to proceed with a historic designation were always vetoed by general board votes.  There seemed to be a lot of politics involved and the owners of the building even had an architect hired for the condo project explain to the audience of the community board that the old building could physically not be saved.

Community members siding with the demolition of the building even spoke up while carrying newborn babies with them when giving speeches.  Their voiced concern was that if the building did not get razed for the new construction, their children would not benefit from the community center yet to be built.  P.S. 186 was an unsalvageable blight to these folks.

On the other hand, the other school P.S. 90 located just a bit further up north was in a similar condition earlier in the last decade and had successfully sold out as majority market rate condos.  A community space was also established for that building and there was even an affordable housing component to some of the units.  Everyone was happy over in CB10 with the end results.  At the end, the big recession hit and this could have possibly altered general plans for big development.  Sometimes just over a year ago, it was announced that government subsidies and tax breaks were being applied to P.S. 186 to restore the building to its original glory.

It was hard for an outsider to see through the politics of the local community board meetings on the building but one moment outside of the discourse always stuck with us.   On one of our earlier photo outings a few years ago, an older local gentleman with a cane noticed our viewing of the unofficial landmark.  He asked if we thought the building was beautiful (because he had always thought so) and said his wish was that the school would be restored one day for the community.