Manhattan Youth Catches $250,000 Pass from NFL The National Football League awarded $250,000 to Manhattan Youth, which runs a wide range of programs for Downtown kids, as part of $5.5 million in grants given by the league to nine Lower Manhattan organizations and projects. A grant of $100,000 will go mostly toward Manhattan Youth’s programs for middle school children at its community center at 55 Warren St., including after-school programs, a computer lab and social activities on Friday and Saturday night. The money will also support a community service project for teens, an art therapy program, and the Lower Manhattan Giants, a new kids’ tackle football team. The other $150,000, which Manhattan Youth must match with money from another source, will help the organization develop a community center in the new residential building that that the city and developer Scott Resnick are planning for Site 5C, at Chambers, West and Warren streets, behind P.S. 234. The project’s details are still being finalized (Community Board 1 says it’s too big for the neighborhood; see story, “Residents Scrutinize Proposed Tower for Site 5C”), but it is currently supposed to include an 18,000-foot community center. “It’s very exciting for us,” said Bob Townley, Manhattan Youth’s director. “When the NFL heard our story, what we’re trying to do down here for Downtown kids, they wanted to support us.” The new funding “helps us out in a very bad fiscal year,” he added, noting that most of Manhattan Youth’s middle school programs are provided free or at low cost to families. “And the fact that someone has come on board to support the community center project is very encouraging.” As for the tackle football team, Townley said he hoped to have it up and running next year. He had wanted to field the team during this fall season—he held a preliminary practice in the spring—but he had to postpone the program in part because of a lack of funding. The $5.5 million is coming from the NFL’s Disaster Relief Fund, which the league created after the terrorist attacks. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Mayor Micheal Bloomberg announced the grants at a press conference on Oct. 7 at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Houston Street. The largest of the grants, $2 million, will go toward completing construction of Millenium High School at 75 Broad Street. The school, which gives preference to children who live south of 14th Street, moved into newly renovated spaces on the 13th floor and in the lobby last month, and construction of additional space on the 11th and 12th floors is scheduled to be completed next June. The school currently has only a ninth and a tenth grade, but it will grow into a full high school with 500 students. The NFL also awarded $1 million to the city’s Department of Small Business Services to help it create assistance centers in Lower Manhattan and the other four boroughs; $970,000 for the Parks Department’s renovation of Baruch Playgrournd on the Lower East Side; $250,000 each to NYU Downtown Hospital, St.. Vincent's Hospital and the Gouverneur Healthcare Services clinic; $50,000 for “Tribute in Light,” the dual towers of light that were brought back to mark second anniversary of the terrorist attacks; and $25,000 for last month’s renovation of Sara D. Roosevelt Park.