The Center fro the Urban Environment, a respected 30-year-old organization dedicated to green education, closed very suddenly this week. It comes less than a year after a move into an expensive LEED-approved building and many in Brooklyn are wondering why? Was it mismanagement of funds or overspending on the new building? Perhaps their closing is just a casualty of dire economic times? Were any efforts made to save the organization by local politicians or philanthropists. The Center for the Urban Environment sent out this press release earlier today, which provides few specific answers. 

After
30 years, the Center for the Urban
Environment (CUE; formerly the Brooklyn
Center for the Urban Environment, or BCUE), closed its
doors this week due to funding delays and shortfalls, and began the process of
dissolving the organization.

“We
are very proud of CUE’s 30-year history of leadership, accomplishments and
service to schools and the broader community. CUE has been at the forefront of
public education about environmental responsibility, sustainability and
greenbuilding.  We are deeply saddened
that sustaining CUE as an independent organization is no longer viable.  Funding has declined sharply from public and
private sources.  And we have just
completed a complex capital project,” explained Charlotte Gemmel, Chairperson
of CUE’s Board of Directors.  “While we
had hoped to be able to restructure and maintain CUE at a smaller scale, the
enormity of the challenge before us led to this very difficult decision.”

 “Our
best assets have always been the talented, committed and energetic professional
staff of educators, planners and activists who pioneered such dynamic programs
and taught hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and families about the
urban and natural environments around us, and it is with special regret that we
have lost CUE as the home from which they could operate,” Gemmel added.  “CUE’s board will work diligently to ensure
that its signature programs, curricula and activities find new homes, perhaps
with some of the many wonderful organizations with which we have collaborated
in the environmental education field.”

 CUE
was founded by John Muir as the Prospect
Park Environmental
Center, and for most of its years
operated out of the Tennis House in the park; it recently completed renovation
of a LEED-Gold eligible home in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.

 Through
the years, CUE’s core programs sent specially-trained teachers into thousands
of classrooms all over Brooklyn and in all other boroughs to provide a wide
range of programs about environmental sciences and the urban and natural
environments for children ranging from pre-K to high school.  It partnered with a number of organizations
on charter high schools and special programs promoting environmental education issues
and practices.  For adults, it operated
weekend tours of neighborhoods and historic sites, organized public events like
GreenBrooklyn, incubated the Sustainable Business Alliance – a growing network
of businesses – and broadened its public programming in its new home.