Magazine

The scraped metal side door of the Prospect Avenue subway station in Brooklyn looks like it leads to a janitor’s closet. Press the buzzer, and muffled subway announcements and the street noise of grinding truck gears give way to the ecstatic squeals, anguished shrieks and thumping feet of 50 toddlers and four-year-olds. Inside, three four-year-old girls rush a visitor. “We are doing a dramatic ice play,” one shrieks. A paper igloo lurks in the corner, and a teacher sits with a half-dozen other kids hugging themselves. “It’s cold!” Today is all about ice.

The preschoolers at the Maple Street School are used to visitors. Their parents can drop in whenever they want, and no teacher or director will harrumph and suggest now is not the best time. That’s because the parents run the school.