Mike Reicher

Daily Pilot

This three-part series examined the choices parents make about schools in Costa Mesa, Calif., a community whose ethnic and socioeconomic identity has shift dramatically in recent years.

Many parents take their kids out of local public campuses and enroll in nearby districts or private schools.

Their flight illustrates a larger trend in suburbs across the country. As immigrants continue to move into historically white communities, the established families are choosing to leave their neighborhood campuses.

Over the course of a year, Mike interviewed dozens of parents, and many teachers, children, education experts and administrators. They offered their perspectives and solutions to what many viewed as a serious problem.

School Flight Part 1: Why Mesa Verde families transfer out

School Flight Part 2: Not everyone chooses to leave neighborhood schools

School Flight Part 3: Families return to neighborhood schools

Video: How parents and educators respond

Comments: Readers respond to ‘School Flight’ series

(John Weiss/Landmarks Preservation Commission)

From the Metro-North station at 125th Street, it is one of the most visible features of the Harlem streetscape: a massive red stone building, covered with black netting, blue scaffolding and plywood boards. Through a gap, bay window frames and ornamental terra cotta rosettes peek out.

But soon, the throngs of commuters who pass by the landmark, the Corn Exchange Bank Building, an 1883-84 Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival structure, will be able to see even less of it. The top two floors will be gone.
On Wednesday, the city’s Department of Buildings issued a permit to demolish the two floors, finding that the building — as it has stood for 125 years — was unsafe.
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