Several of them were fighting the expansion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, even though the Park views of only a few people — including the board president — would be affected.
For me, this was not so much Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock Bond, complete with sneering villain who wants to take over the world, high-octane fight sequences and a theme-park view of 19th-century London that signally failed to convey the dirt and the horror.
"The apartment goes across the whole building on the 15th floor," she said, "and the 15th floor is the only one with stone balustrades framing the park views out of every window".
The trust which runs Park View, one of the schools caught up in the claims, issued a statement on Thursday dismissing allegations of extremism as false.
"Park View is part of the solution, not part of the problem," he said.
The Park View, like much of this block on the northern edge of Central Park, has undergone an enormous transition in recent years.
It is a little too far east for a close-up, and she has only a sliver of a park view between the buildings of the East Side.
Lee Donaghy, the assistant principal of Park View school in Birmingham, one of those slammed by Ofsted last week; and Sir Albert Bore, leader of Birmingham city council will give evidence.
Mr White said Park View's board of governors was reorganised after the school was put into special measures by Ofsted in 1993.
Alongside Park Vista, D'Alessio Enterprises is building Park View, which will consist of 12 single-family semidetached town houses.
