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BRONX, NY--The main streets of the Northwest Bronx are lined with stores of all kinds that do a bustling business. So why does the city's mayor want to turn a vacant Armory, the area's largest eyesore, into a giant mall?

Bronx residents got good news that the colossal Kingsbridge Armory would be redeveloped. But the bad news is that rather than use the 40,000-square-foot site to build badly-needed new schools, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani wants to turn it into a mall.

Leaders of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition rallied at the end of August to demand a change of plan from the Giuliani administration.

"The need for classroom space is tremendous, and if we miss this opportunity it gets worse," Ron Jordan of the Coalition's Education Committee told The New York Times at the rally. The event drew support from the group's local members of Congress and others in the community.

In 1999 the Coalition invested grant funds in a comprehensive plan that would build three public schools inside the block-long vacant armory. Federal funds are available to rehab the building into an educational facility.