The Real Deal looks back at some of New York’s biggest real estate stories
From the August issue: This month in 1980, the city disclosed plans to sell a handful of public schools 30 years ago this month as student enrollment declined and classroom consolidation was pushed to conserve dollars. At the time, city officials and developers said that the five targeted school buildings would be put to better use as housing. Of those schools, several did become apartments, including 29 King Street in Soho, where a unit recently sold for $1.4 million, and 371 Madison Street on the Lower East Side, which was reconfigured for rental apartments. The city Board of Education sought to sell or lease schools because by the end of 1983, the student population had fallen by about 10 percent, to 900,000 students from 1 million. Because of the decline in enrollment, the city either gave away, sold or closed about 100 schools between 1975 and 1982. In the 1980s, school enrollment began to rise again. And today there are about 1.1 million public school students at more than 1,600 city schools. Click here to learn about more real estate milestones this month in history.
