'Gossip Girl' Studio Eyed For Use by Public Pupils

The television and movie studio that is the main set for "Gossip Girl," the show about Manhattan private schools, could soon become the stomping grounds of a New York City public school.

But the plan to open what would be a farm team for the city's entertainment industry — taking students on regular trips to the Queens studio that filmed "Gossip Girl," as well as "Gangs of New York," "The Sopranos," and "Sex and the City" — is running into opposition from local public school parents.

The parents' middle school, I.S. 204 in Long Island City, is just blocks away from Silvercup Studios, and therefore a top contender for housing the planned new Academy for Careers in Television & Film.

Silvercup Studios's president, Stuart Suna, said in an interview that students will make regular visits to his company's complex of 13 shooting stages, and even take classes there. "We would be one of the laboratories where they could actually get some hands-on experience," Mr. Suna said.

He said the future production artists — who will be prepped for careers in jobs known as "below-the-line," meaning they are behind-the-scenes — will also collaborate with another Long Island City school preparing students for the other side of the camera, the Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts.

But after learning I.S. 204 is in the running to house the academy, the school's parents and teachers are fighting back.

"Look, Carrie's cool and everything, but I can't even afford Manolo Blahniks," the secretary of the Parent Teacher Association at I.S. 204, Ines Rivera, said, referring to the "Sex and the City" character. "My kid comes first." A math teacher at the school who is its official teachers union representative, Justin LeWinter, said he did not realize the studio's connections until his students pointed out to him yesterday that it is the place where "Gossip Girl" is filmed.

Mr. LeWinter, Ms. Rivera, and other parents and teachers said they are concerned that adding a high school would crowd their middle school, forcing administrators to increase the school's small class sizes and get rid of rooms now dedicated to art, music, and technology enrichment. They said the addition would also threaten the school's model of dividing children into three small learning communities — academies called Harvard, Yale, and Princeton — which are right now separated between the school's three floors, but would have to be redesigned if a high school took a floor.

Ms. Rivera said the idea of 10-year-olds mingling with 18-year-olds is especially disturbing. She said her daughter, a seventh-grader, already faces harassment from high school students on her walk home, and she recently had a Sidekick 2 device stolen by a high school student.

"Developmentally, physically, mentally, psychosocially — pick one and I'll tell you how horrible it's going to be," Ms. Rivera said. The city school official in charge of finding places to open new schools, John White, said he understands the community's concerns. But he said the Department of Education has to think about the needs of students across the city, not just in one neighborhood. While I.S. 204 students may be comfortable, the number of students is just 60% of the building's capacity, and enrollment has been steadily declining for three years. Meanwhile, Mr. White said, "We have high schools in Queens that are going to extraordinarily great lengths to even find classrooms for their kids."

He said opening a new school would alleviate that crowding, and it would not affect I.S. 204 substantially. Art programs and other extras would not be threatened, and any increase in class sizes would be "minute," he said.

The academy is one of Mayor Bloomberg's trumpeted new career and technical schools. Its major partner is the New York Production Alliance, of which Silvercup Studios is a member.

The school's future principal, Mark Dunetz, said he plans to match students with careers they probably do not even know exist, by routing them into specific "majors" and internships in their final years. He said he wants to prepare students for college but also show them school can be "relevant."

"Production in New York City has grown considerably," he said. "We're really excited about giving access to those jobs to a wide cross section of the graduates of the New York City public schools."