Around 400 volunteers came out for Tribeca’s Downtown Community Center yesterday, which took in twenty feet of water from the surge that hit lower Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy.
Manhattan Youth offered a variety of after school classes for kids from kindergarten through 5th grade in their community center two storeys below ground. The entire area has been destroyed by water damage, according to ceramics teacher Isabel Halley.
Manhattan Youth spent the past two weeks stripping the sodden, moldy drywall from the walls, and yesterday welcomed a 400 person “Bucket Brigade.”
“They took 2,000 buckets of debris out of there, which is pretty amazing,” Halley said. “It wasn’t pleasant, it was gross stuff, but people were really being amazing.”
Now the staff is readying to tackle the boiler and the septic system in their still powerless, completely generator-run space. They will also focus on fundraising: Halley says the rebuild will cost $2 million.
