Two new preschools will open in Manhattan next year, one in the
Tribeca-Battery Park City area and the other near Lincoln Square, Schoolbook, a
joint New York Times and WNYC news site, reported. Gabriella Rowe, the
head of the Mandell School on the Upper West Side, plans to open the
two schools. Rowe, a former investment banker, said she commissioned
demographic studies showing that those neighborhoods saw above average
population and housing in the past 10 year based on census records.
From 2000 to 2010, total occupied housing increased by 103 percent in the Battery
Park City-Lower Manhattan area. The population of children under 5 in
the area, which encompasses Manhattan Community District 1 (Battery Park
City, Tribeca, the Financial District and the Civic Center) increased 42
percent from 2000 to 2010, with 2,272 young children living there in
2010.
Many of the families in these neighborhoods are wealthy and work
in finance, the study indicates. In the Tribeca zip code where one of the schools
is planned, the estimated median home cost is $948,482 and the estimated median annual household income is $176,394.
In addition, Schoolbook reported that Sunny Varkey, founder of a chain
of commercial private schools, is also considering opening two schools
in 2012. [Schoolbook]