Daily News from New York, New York • 5

i 7 Wants Board of Ed in Tweed Courthouse instead By DAVID SAHONSTAU, AUSON GENDAR and JOANNE WASSERMAN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Mayor Bloomberg killed plans yesterday to move the Museum of the City of New York to the Tweed Courthouse hoping instead to make the lavishly renovated building home to the Board of Education. ty f7 650 staffers working in the leaner, meaner, bullpen-style offices that Bloomberg favors could fit in the top floors of the Tweed Courthouse, just steps from City Hall. Bloomberg said he could think of no other organization that could benefit more from open-space bullpen work areas than the "secretive" school bureaucracy. "Symbolism is important," Bloomberg said. "Having the Board of Education successor closer to the mayor than 1 Police Plaza says what our real priorities are here." The plan also calls for a In a gesture rich with symbolism but short on details, Bloomberg said he wanted to move top school officials to Tweed, restored at a cost of $89 million, to show that fixing the troubled public schools are his priority.

The move, which depends on the Legislature giving Bloomberg control of the schools, could mean layoffs for some of the 800 bureaucrats now at 110 Livingston the board's Brooklyn headquarters often mocked as a model of bloat and inefficiency. Other board employees work in nearby buildings. Mayoral aides estimated that SUSAN WATTS DAILY NEWS I Mayor Bloomberg, with City Council Speaker GSfford Miller, making Tweed Courthouse announcement. school on the first floor to remind bureaucrats "why they have jobs and what their mission is all about, he said. "The mayor has made it quite clear he thinks the school system can do a lot more with fewer people," said a top aide.

Bloomberg's decision took museum officials by surprise and left them critical of the mayor for passing up an opportunity to help rebuild lower Manhattan. The move also underscored how seriously he views the need to gain control of the schools. The aide said Bloomberg was clearly trying to send a message to the Legislature, which must approve any changes, that the school system must be overhauled his way. If Albany balks, the aide said, Bloomberg will find "some other use" for the empty building which is costing the city $20,000 a month in electric and security bills, the Daily News revealed last month. The mayor wants to scrap the seven-member Board of Ed and replace the chancellor with an education commissioner answerable to him.

Bloomberg was optimistic the Legislature would grant him the power he seeks by May, even though lawmakers have said it's more likely they will retain some form of a board with reduced powers. Earlier plan misfired Plans to sell the three-building board complex and replace it with a smaller home in downtown Brooklyn stalled last year. Reaction in Albany was guarded. "I'm not sure I understand the point, other than symbolic," said Assemblyman Steve Sanders (D-Manhattan), chairman of the Education Committee. "If the idea is to create a smaller, more efficient administration, then that could be a good idea." Gov.

Pataki did not return calls for comment. Neither did ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who made the deal to move the the museum. Teachers union chief Randi Weingarten lauded the idea, calling it "patriotic" to move to lower Manhattan. Board President Ninfa Segar-ra said the plan "shows the mayor wants to keep on top of Mayor Bloomberg offered the following plan yesterday to transform the four-story Tweed Courthouse into a new Board of Education headquarters steps from City Hall. Bloomberg aides called the move symbolic of his desire to emphasize the importance of schools.

131 (. 111 ihW-i lit' lh 'UU" id win ariMiiiruj. asiit m-' III ii im hi Mi a vf ji 355 aaat shop ta iiM irm nr. inn f-1 rnta jtfli mm 3 i What the city spent to fix it up in 2000: $89 million TWEED What the city spent to build Tweed Courthouse in the 1870s: FACTS: $13 million $178 million in today dollars. Peeved toft mew fouGuil (flags aire feastoiry a space couldn't be found near City Hall for the Board of Ed.

Bloomberg promised that he would work with museum officials to find a new home perhaps in whatever rises at Ground Zero if the board still decides to leave its home. Merrill said a potential move to the former site of the twin towers was news to him and said it was too early to comment on it. $89 million has said the city would be hard pressed to come up with the $21.5 million it agreed to give the museum to defray moving costs. But the city risks being socked with $3 million in penalties if it pulls out of the deal Museum chairman Newton Merrill said the board was "extremely disappointed" and questioned why more generic office great building into office space," one museum source said of the mayor's plan to convert the downtown landmark into an education annex of City Hall. "You could scream and yell, but down the road, what do you do?" said the source at the museum on Fifth Ave.

and E. 103rd whose officials had toiled since December 2000 to make the historic courthouse its home. Bloomberg's decision wreaked havoc on the museum's financial planning. It has spent $2 million on plans to move to bigger digs in Tweed and would stand to take in $10 million more in grants after moving day. Bloomberg who expressed shock at the Tweed fixup tab of By JOANNE WASSERMAN and DAVD SA1T0NSTALL DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU For the Museum of the City of New York, Mayor Bloomberg's announcement yesterday that it wouldn't be moving into the Tweed Courthouse was a sucker punch.

"People are really just feeling anger, pain, disappointment that he would turn this to.