antinimby
January 23rd, 2007, 11:48 PM
Police May Get an Academy That Can Fit All Its Recruits
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.xlarge1.jpg
Indoor puddles are among the many ailments of the aging academy where New York City has trained its
police officers since 1964.
By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: January 23, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.html)
The newest crop of New York’s finest stepped into the crisp Manhattan night, another day at the police academy behind them. Briskly, they crossed the academy’s plaza, where new recruits assemble in tidy formations each day. Their hair was neatly shorn. Their shoes were polished to a high shine. They were silhouetted by a moldering mountain of garbage, piled high to the left of the academy’s front door on East 20th Street.
Inside, in the second-floor auditorium, more recruits shifted uncomfortably in rickety seats. Dozens of seats were empty, listing in various states of disrepair. Deep below the auditorium, near the small firing range in the academy’s dank sub-basement, Officer Joseph Gentile, a firearms instructor, stared glumly at shell casings scattered in a murky puddle. At the end of each shift, Officer Gentile vacuums up the water, which leaches from dubious sources through the concrete floor.
“I don’t want to pick the casings up, because the water is kind of nasty,” Officer Gentile said.
The New York Police Department has long clamored for a new police academy, saying it long ago outgrew the creaky 43-year-old building on East 20th Street.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.1902.jpg
The police academy classes seen
in the undated black and white
photograph had far fewer recruits
than today. There were just 600
when the building opened, and
more than 1,000 members in this
year’s class.
The wait may be coming to an end. Last week, in his State of the City address, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that the city was searching for a site for a new police academy, one that would consolidate the department’s far-flung firearms, classroom and training grounds.
“It’s sorely needed,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, during a visit to the academy on Friday. “I think the product has been terrific, but the traffic has put tremendous strain on the trainers.”
Before a new academy is built, police and city officials have to figure out how to pay for it. Also, perhaps most daunting, they have to find a place to put it in real-estate-crazed New York.
When the present academy opened in 1964, classes were made up of 600 recruits, all of them men, Mr. Kelly said. But the numbers have since mushroomed. Since January 2002, the academy has trained 14,372 recruits and officers, according to Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/22/nyregion/23academy.1903.jpg
The last several classes at the
academy have been so large that
they have had to divide into two
shifts.
Nowadays, the training of recruits — just over 1,000 in the latest class — is divided into night and day shifts because they cannot all fit into the building at the same time. The formerly all-male locker room and its showers and bathroom have been crudely divided by drywall, plaster and tile to accommodate female recruits and staff. The parking garage and dimly lit hallways double as storage space. There is nowhere to put the garbage. The wiring is spotty, too. When the building went up, manual typewriters were the norm.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.19032.jpg
With space in very short supply at
the police academy, treasures and
trash can be found side by side.
“In one of my offices, if they turn the toaster oven on, the circuit blows and the printer and computer go down,” said Capt. Kevin J. Walsh, of the department’s training support section. “There’s not enough electrical support.”
Earlier city administrations have promised the Police Department a new academy before. Mayor Edward I. Koch proposed one in 1989, and three years later, Mayor David N. Dinkins unveiled a model for a $230 million academy in the South Bronx. But Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pulled the financing in 1995 as part of citywide budget cuts.
But with the city’s coffers swollen with a budget surplus of more than $2 billion, this could be an ideal time. Mr. Browne said that the cost of building the new academy would probably exceed $1 billion. Moving the firing range and driver training facility would make up a major part of the cost, he said, and the department has more recent obligations, like training school safety agents and counterterrorism units.
Whatever the final amount turns out to be, it would be covered by the city’s capital budget, and possibly federal antiterrorism funds, according to Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for administration. The sale of the present academy, which spans nearly half of a block near Gramercy Park, would help defray the cost, Mr. Kelly said.
The biggest hurdle may be finding the right location, one large enough to fulfill the department’s many aspirations. Police officials are hoping for 1.3 million square feet of indoor space, Mr. Browne said, roughly four and a half times bigger than the current building.
Neither the city nor the Police Department would hint at possible locations. Mr. Skyler said an interagency team from the city and the Police Department expected to present possible sites, and costs, to Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly this spring.
“I doubt it’ll be in Manhattan,” Mr. Kelly said. City officials hope to break ground before Mr. Bloomberg’s term ends in 2009.
Recruits are now trained in three places, and spend a lot of time shuttling between them. Most classroom training is done at the academy. Driving drills are held at Floyd Bennett Field in southeast Brooklyn. The bulk of firearms training occurs at the southern end of Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, to the consternation of people living nearby on City Island.
“We’re moving people all over the city,” Captain Walsh said. “The inefficiencies are huge.”
The academy’s sorry state has drawn criticism from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a group of law enforcement organizations that assessed and accredited the department last year. New York’s police academy, the organization noted in a report, “is operating well over capacity and is unequipped to meet the needs of any 21st century police force, much less the largest police force in the world.”
Still, New York’s trainers have long ago tried to make the best of their space, said Assistant Chief Diana L. Pizzuti, the academy’s commanding officer.
Come summer, recruits are cautioned not to take the corners too fast before running laps in the gym. The gym is not air-conditioned, so clouds of humidity often form above the sweaty masses, one trainer said, slicking the floors and causing spectacular, domino-like wipeouts. Training in the gym is halted when temperatures inside hit 100 degrees.
While modern police training involves simulations of real life, like shooting drills conducted in full-scale model villages, academy trainers post fake street signs in hallways so recruits can pretend that they are patrolling real streets. (“Maple St.” and “Oak St.” read two signs tacked up on the fourth floor.)
“Everything here has multiple uses,” Chief Pizzuti said.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.xlarge1.jpg
Indoor puddles are among the many ailments of the aging academy where New York City has trained its
police officers since 1964.
By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: January 23, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.html)
The newest crop of New York’s finest stepped into the crisp Manhattan night, another day at the police academy behind them. Briskly, they crossed the academy’s plaza, where new recruits assemble in tidy formations each day. Their hair was neatly shorn. Their shoes were polished to a high shine. They were silhouetted by a moldering mountain of garbage, piled high to the left of the academy’s front door on East 20th Street.
Inside, in the second-floor auditorium, more recruits shifted uncomfortably in rickety seats. Dozens of seats were empty, listing in various states of disrepair. Deep below the auditorium, near the small firing range in the academy’s dank sub-basement, Officer Joseph Gentile, a firearms instructor, stared glumly at shell casings scattered in a murky puddle. At the end of each shift, Officer Gentile vacuums up the water, which leaches from dubious sources through the concrete floor.
“I don’t want to pick the casings up, because the water is kind of nasty,” Officer Gentile said.
The New York Police Department has long clamored for a new police academy, saying it long ago outgrew the creaky 43-year-old building on East 20th Street.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.1902.jpg
The police academy classes seen
in the undated black and white
photograph had far fewer recruits
than today. There were just 600
when the building opened, and
more than 1,000 members in this
year’s class.
The wait may be coming to an end. Last week, in his State of the City address, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that the city was searching for a site for a new police academy, one that would consolidate the department’s far-flung firearms, classroom and training grounds.
“It’s sorely needed,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, during a visit to the academy on Friday. “I think the product has been terrific, but the traffic has put tremendous strain on the trainers.”
Before a new academy is built, police and city officials have to figure out how to pay for it. Also, perhaps most daunting, they have to find a place to put it in real-estate-crazed New York.
When the present academy opened in 1964, classes were made up of 600 recruits, all of them men, Mr. Kelly said. But the numbers have since mushroomed. Since January 2002, the academy has trained 14,372 recruits and officers, according to Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/22/nyregion/23academy.1903.jpg
The last several classes at the
academy have been so large that
they have had to divide into two
shifts.
Nowadays, the training of recruits — just over 1,000 in the latest class — is divided into night and day shifts because they cannot all fit into the building at the same time. The formerly all-male locker room and its showers and bathroom have been crudely divided by drywall, plaster and tile to accommodate female recruits and staff. The parking garage and dimly lit hallways double as storage space. There is nowhere to put the garbage. The wiring is spotty, too. When the building went up, manual typewriters were the norm.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/23/nyregion/23academy.19032.jpg
With space in very short supply at
the police academy, treasures and
trash can be found side by side.
“In one of my offices, if they turn the toaster oven on, the circuit blows and the printer and computer go down,” said Capt. Kevin J. Walsh, of the department’s training support section. “There’s not enough electrical support.”
Earlier city administrations have promised the Police Department a new academy before. Mayor Edward I. Koch proposed one in 1989, and three years later, Mayor David N. Dinkins unveiled a model for a $230 million academy in the South Bronx. But Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pulled the financing in 1995 as part of citywide budget cuts.
But with the city’s coffers swollen with a budget surplus of more than $2 billion, this could be an ideal time. Mr. Browne said that the cost of building the new academy would probably exceed $1 billion. Moving the firing range and driver training facility would make up a major part of the cost, he said, and the department has more recent obligations, like training school safety agents and counterterrorism units.
Whatever the final amount turns out to be, it would be covered by the city’s capital budget, and possibly federal antiterrorism funds, according to Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for administration. The sale of the present academy, which spans nearly half of a block near Gramercy Park, would help defray the cost, Mr. Kelly said.
The biggest hurdle may be finding the right location, one large enough to fulfill the department’s many aspirations. Police officials are hoping for 1.3 million square feet of indoor space, Mr. Browne said, roughly four and a half times bigger than the current building.
Neither the city nor the Police Department would hint at possible locations. Mr. Skyler said an interagency team from the city and the Police Department expected to present possible sites, and costs, to Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly this spring.
“I doubt it’ll be in Manhattan,” Mr. Kelly said. City officials hope to break ground before Mr. Bloomberg’s term ends in 2009.
Recruits are now trained in three places, and spend a lot of time shuttling between them. Most classroom training is done at the academy. Driving drills are held at Floyd Bennett Field in southeast Brooklyn. The bulk of firearms training occurs at the southern end of Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, to the consternation of people living nearby on City Island.
“We’re moving people all over the city,” Captain Walsh said. “The inefficiencies are huge.”
The academy’s sorry state has drawn criticism from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a group of law enforcement organizations that assessed and accredited the department last year. New York’s police academy, the organization noted in a report, “is operating well over capacity and is unequipped to meet the needs of any 21st century police force, much less the largest police force in the world.”
Still, New York’s trainers have long ago tried to make the best of their space, said Assistant Chief Diana L. Pizzuti, the academy’s commanding officer.
Come summer, recruits are cautioned not to take the corners too fast before running laps in the gym. The gym is not air-conditioned, so clouds of humidity often form above the sweaty masses, one trainer said, slicking the floors and causing spectacular, domino-like wipeouts. Training in the gym is halted when temperatures inside hit 100 degrees.
While modern police training involves simulations of real life, like shooting drills conducted in full-scale model villages, academy trainers post fake street signs in hallways so recruits can pretend that they are patrolling real streets. (“Maple St.” and “Oak St.” read two signs tacked up on the fourth floor.)
“Everything here has multiple uses,” Chief Pizzuti said.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company