Three Neighborhood Day Care Centers To Close

Time is running out for 15 city-run day care centers in Brooklyn and Queens. in Boerum Hill is one of them. But on a recent January day, activities are progressing as usual.

It’s lunch time and a teacher is getting her children ready to march down the hall to the elevator, and eventually downstairs to eat.  

“Who’s ready for the hall?” she asked her troop of four and five year olds. Smiles and a chorus of “me” come from the children with their hands up in the air. Then they’re off into the hallway to take the elevator one floor down where spaghetti, salmon cakes and vegetables await.

Shaniqua Pippen, a group teacher for two-year-olds, is sitting in the room when the group marches in. She’s only been working at the center since June, but the idea that it’ll soon close is a difficult one.

“It’s sad. It sucks to see the center I went to go down the drain,” she said. “I’m so used to being here. To see it shut down is shocking.” From age 9 through 13, Pippen attended the day care center. Her siblings all went to Bethel, too.

Boerum Hill is losing this publicly-funded day care, along with Strong Place Day Care Center, located in the same building, on July 1.

This isn’t the first time the centers have been confronted with notices of closure. A year ago they faced the same threat but were given a reprieve. Now, they find themselves back on the chopping block.  

The reason for their proposed closures? According to Elysia Murphy, a spokesperson for the Administration for Children’s Services, the agency that decides which day care centers in New York receive funding, the ACS’s budget was cut by the city. Having to trim costs, the agency decided to close the most costly centers. 

"In identifying City-leased sites to be consolidated we evaluated our entire portfolio of more than 100 leases and considered factors including high facility and utility costs, vacant space, high maintenance and repair costs, facilities in poor condition requiring significant capital improvements and centers in communities where there were alternative programs available for children currently served," said Murphy in a statement.

 “We don’t have the ability to restore anything that we cut, especially in these fiscal times when no one is giving us additional money,” Murphy added.

For the directors of Bethel and Strong Place, Joan Morris and Lorraine Pennisi, they don’t buy this reasoning. The landlord of their building on Hoyt Street, Ed Luddin, has indicated numerous times to them a willingness to renegotiate the rent, but he says he has yet to speak to someone from the ACS.

Jerry Chiappetta, executive director of Cobble Hill's , the third neighborhood day care center set to close, doesn’t blame the ACS. What he’d really like is a meeting with the city to retool his day care program at a lower cost.

“We have too much involved here, and a lot of good stuff here comes out of day care programs,” Chiappetta said.

Pennisi said she doesn't know what to tell the parents. The enrollment at Strong Place is currently at 92 percent.

The loss of these centers, which have been operating in the neighborhoods for as long as 40 years, will have a large impact on community members. Many of the children come from single-family households and the centers are the only affordable option for them when parents are working, said Councilmember Stephen Levin.

Melissa Marcano, a teacher at Court Street for over four years, will not only have to worry about finding a new job, but also where her daughter will go after school while she’s at work.

“It’s going to be hard for me,” Marcano said.

Estrella Hernandez will also have to make a decision. Her grandson is new to Court Street. Hernandez chose the day care because her daughter attended the center 22 years ago and it’s close to their home.

“It makes me very sad because the center is very important,” she said in Spanish. “It’s a pity if they close. A lot of people will be without jobs.”

She’ll either have to find a day care further away, or begin staying home to look after her grandson.

Pennisi and Chiappetta say that they won’t go quietly and they’ll continue to fight to find a solution.

“It’s not a situation where there is an unwillingness on our part” to negotiate, Chiappetta said.

Councilmember Levin is also trying to find a solution that will keep the day cares open.

“As the Council begins to negotiate next year’s budget, I will continue to make their voices heard," [like last year], Levin said in a statement. “It is important that the administration understands how important these day care centers are to our community.”

For those working at the centers, they say there is always hope, but it’s hard to keep the thought alive.

“The parents are really disturbed. They don’t know where to go,” Bethel Baptist’s Morris said. “Childcare enhances the community.”