Tough Crowd . . .

How badass are community boards? The Tribeca Tribune tells the story of how Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan recently brutally rebuffed a group of schoolchildren looking to honor an early African-American civil rights hero:

There is precious little park space on the east side of Lower Manhattan and Community Board 1 is protective of every square inch of it — from the benches and planned play space at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to the open land way out on the southern end of Governor’s Island.

So last month when a small contingent from “uptown” came to the community board with a request to rename the recently rescued Pearl Street Park, members of the board’s Seaport/Civic Center Committees reflexively grew defensive — even if the proposal was delivered sweetly by a group of 3rd- and 4th-graders.

Students from P.S. 361, on East 12th Street, hoped to rename the park for Elizabeth Jennings, an African-American woman who in 1854 was forcibly removed from a horse-drawn bus at Pearl and Chatham Streets. The incident sparked a landmark court case more than 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, Ala.

Board members literally applauded the students’ presentation and history lesson, but were still not swayed.

“How many of you actually play in that park?” asked board member Joe Lerner.

Miriam Sicherman, the students’ teacher, explained that the class made their first visit to the park on that very day, but while they were there they collected 336 signatures on a petition in favor of renaming the park. She also produced a printout of an e-mail of support from the city’s Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe.

“He’s no friend of ours,” said Lerner, pointing out that the board only recently won a skirmish with the Parks Department and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation that saved the park from demolition. Officials planned to replace it with housing as part of the revitalization of Fulton Street.