A ritzy Upper East Side private school has won its fight to turn a public street into its own private playground for the academic year — prompting businesses on the block to cry foul.
Manhattan’s Community Board 8 unanimously approved an application from the $62,500-a-year Birch Wathen Lenox School to shut down East 77th Street between Second and Third avenues to foot and car traffic for two “peak” hours a day, three days a week, starting next month.
“It’s a school filled with very rich kids. It’s like the 1% taking away from the 99%,” fumed Todd Layne, whose namesake laundromat lies just a few dozen feet from the posh school.
“Why do they have the right to commandeer an entire street and disrupt the businesses on this block?”…