NYC closing street to give posh UES prep school own private playground

The city plans to shut down an Upper East Side block so a posh prep school can use it as its own private playground.

The Department of Transportation has greenlit the $62,500-a-year Birch Wathen Lenox School’s application to include East 77th Street between Second and Third Avenues in its controversial anti-car “Open Streets” program beginning Jan. 5.  

This means the busy residential street would close to traffic between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays, a plan local residents and business owners torched as a boondoggle for the wealthy few.

“If this closure goes into effect, the majority of the residents and business on this block will have their lives disrupted as cars, cabs and ambulances will not be able to get through,” said Marie Stareck, a senior on the block. “The Open Streets program benefits the privileged few and hurts tax-paying citizens.”

The block is regularly used by ambulances trying to reach Lenox Hill Hospital two blocks west and is flanked by construction sites already hampering traffic.

Astride Riche, the K-12 school’s chief of staff, told Manhattan Community Board 8 recently that the 500-student institution is “very excited” to be included in “Open Streets” because its existing outdoor recreational space is “so small” that only one grade can use it at a time.

“We want our children to be able to take advantage of the fresh air and play together,” declared Riche.

Riche insisted vehicles would be allowed on the block “as needed” for business deliveries and picking people up.

But the community board wasn’t sold, voting 36-2 in favor of a non-binding resolution demanding DOT reject the application.

“These children have parents, and when school is over, as I did with mine, you can take your children to the park,” said board member Michele Birnbaum. “You don’t have to inconvenience a major hospital, residences, businesses … This is outrageous.”

DOT claims it will work with the school to “adjust” the planned street hours, but provided no specifics.

The Open Streets program was created in April 2020 as a temporary measure to help New Yorkers gather safely outdoors during the pandemic.

The City Council made it permanent in 2021, and Mayor Adams has since expanded it to roughly 200 sites as part of an agenda aimed at limiting car use.

The city is currently fending off a pending federal lawsuit alleging Open Streets discriminates against people with disabilities who rely on vehicles to travel.