NY: New York City’s Unsung Monuments to Working Moms (Commentary) (Includes video)
Smithsonian Magazine – December 01, 2021
Many childcare centers across the country are squeezed into spaces initially designed for other purposes, like church basements or vacant storefronts. In New York City, where space is at a premium, even the most expensive private daycares may have classrooms void of windows. Prospect Place center stands in contrast, as one of dozens of still-standing, publicly funded childcare centers that were built in the early 1970s with the needs of small kids in mind. Today, some of these half-century-old buildings are falling into disarray. Many are in gentrifying neighborhoods and costly to rent. But as today’s working parents, and particularly moms, nationwide suffer the effects of a private, market-based childcare system gutted by the Covid-19 pandemic, those centers still standing are a testament to the time when New York City wanted to make publicly funded, widely available childcare-like its public schools or subway system-an integral part of life in the city.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-york-citys-unsung-monuments-to-working-moms-180979145/