The Girl's High School 475 Nostrand Avenue Designed by James W. Naughton, 1885–86 James W. Naughton immigrated with his family from Ireland to Brooklyn when he was eight years old. Naughton became a trained architect and was closely involved in Brooklyn politics, which led him to the position of Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education from 1879–1898. As superintendent, Naughton designed all schools constructed in Brooklyn. The Girls’ School is the oldest surviving structure built as a high school in New York, and it served as the prototype for later high schools constructed in the city. A combination of Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire styles, the school is faced in red brick, terra cotta and contrasting stone. It is symmetrically massed, with a central towered entrance and three pavilions, each of which project and are connected by recessed sections. At the rear of the building is a large Collegiate-Gothic style addition designed in 1912 by long-time New York City Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder

First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, ca. !!!!. The denomination known as the A.M.E. Zion Church traces the origins of its congregation to the John Street Methodist Church in Lower Manhattan. The John Street Methodist Church was a mixed-race congregation, which welcomed Black worshippers as many Methodist churches did following the Great Awakening. Though allowed to worship freely, Black members of the church still experienced overt discrimination, leading them to eventually break off into and form another church. The smaller churches that separated from the John Street Methodist Church were attended by only Black congregants, though the ministers were still exclusively white, causing tension among those who attended and those who led the church. The church separated for a second time, following Minister James Varick, an early attendant of the John Street Methodist Church. Varick, a Black man, became the first bishop of the newly-formed and independent African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination. By 1866, the A.M.E. Zion denomination had 42,000 members and, by 1868, its size had quadrupled. At the end of the Civil War, the church was sending missionaries to the South to educate newly emancipated freed men. A.M.E. Zion is sometimes referred to as "Freedom Church" for its connection to Abolitionism. The First A.M.E. Zion Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant was originally part of what was known as the Fleet Street Church, which was organized in 1885 by a small group of 15 people who applied to join the A.M.E. Zion denomination. Like many other historic Black churches in the borough, the group had separated from the Bridge Street A.M.E. in Downtown Brooklyn. The church's first building was the largest of the A.M.E. Zion denomination. By 1942, they purchased the building seen here at Tompkins and MacDonough Street, which seats about 6,000 people and is even today one of the largest A.M.E. Zion buildings.

Saint George’s Protestant Episcopal Church ARCHITECT: Richard M. Upjohn DATE: 1886 STYLE: Victorian Gothic Gravesend was an unusual example of early town planning in America; its village patent was the first land document in New York written in English. Occupying a 1.6-acre lot, this cemetery is one of the smallest in the city. Many of the headstones are brownstone. Among the legible gravestones are those of Revolutionary War veterans, most of the original Gravesend patentees, and many prominent families of the community. The Van Sicklen family maintained their own burial plot in the northwest corner, which is separately fenced

In October of 1971, a group of protesters effectively closed J.H.S. 263. The action was inspired by the ousting of Principal Ozelius Clement. For the week leading up to the occupation, parents boycotted the school by barring their children from attendance. On October 13th, they locked arms to block entry into the building. According to the New York Times: "Parents and other community residents who have been supporting the two principals have charged that the district board, headed by Assemblyman Samuel D. Wright, is attempting to purge school personnel who will not support its efforts to use the district as a power base to enhance Mr. Wright's political ambitions. Mr. Wright has denied the charge."

Enoch Grand Lodge 423 Nostrand Avenue Designed by Heins & LaFarge, 1890 This exuberant building features a dominant corner tower, contrasting brick and terra cotta, finials, stylized capitals and stained glass from its days as the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Reconciliation. The building is notable for its architects. George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge met while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and both trained under the renowned architect H.H. Richardson. A year after this church was completed, they won the design contest for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. They later became the designers of stations and buildings for the city’s first subway system, the IRT, in 1901.

Boys High School, undated postcard. Rendered in a stately Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style, Boys High School was the work of Brooklyn Superintendent of School Buildings, James Naughton (who designed ALL of Brooklyn's schools for nearly two decades). This ornate architecture style of complex massing, repetitive arches, and soaring towers was popular in Brooklyn at the time. The main post office and fire house, social clubs, and private residences were all Richardsonian, though Boys High School is considered the epitome of the style in the city. Fully enrolled by the time it opened in 1892, the school had a number additions in the early 20th century. Famous alum of the school include Norman Mailer, Isaac Asimov, Aaron Copland, Man Ray, and architect Morris Lapidus. Boys and Girls High Schools were combined in 1975 in a new building and this one was left to deteriorate. Through the advocacy of the community and a landmark designation (in 1975) the building was kept from what might have been a likely demolition and eventually restored once again for use. Today it is home to charter schools and recently made a guest appearance as Knickerbocker Hospital in the TV show "The Knick."

Row of shops on Fulton Street, west of Tompkins Avenue, May 14, 1942. P.L. Sperr’s photo was taken almost two years after the Fulton Street elevated line was dismantled, and four years after the IND Fulton Street subway opened. The shops — grocery stores, lunch counters, and meat markets — occupy a row of wood-framed structures dating to at least 1880. Today, those buildings appear intact, though cornices have been stripped and upper story clapboards have been replaced with synthetic siding.

This villa-style home is one of the oldest surviving structures in the neighborhood and a vestige of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s bucolic days. It was constructed for William A. Parker in 1863, who was a local hops and malt merchant. The house was later occupied by James McMahon, the founder and president of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. Since 1945, this structure has been occupied by the United Order of the Tents. The United Order of the Tents was founded as part of the underground railroad, and after the Civil War, was officially organized as a charity and lodge. It is one of the oldest lodges for African-American women in the nation.

Girls High School, May 1, 1942. Built 1885 to 1886, Girls High School is the oldest extant (surviving) public high school building in New York City. The school is described in its landmark designation report as "a striking combination of Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire styles." The architect was James Naughton, the Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn. He also created a 1891 rear extension, which has since been demolished. A 1912 Collegiate Gothic addition was designed by C.B.J Snyder, who later held the same position as Naughton, though his purview was all five boroughs. According to an 1895 article in the New York Times, it was "the ambition of every Brooklyn girl... to enter the Girls' High School where she may enjoy the advantages of an advanced education and be prepared for college." Famous alumni of the school include singer Lena Horne, politician Shirley Chisholm, and Jean Nidetch, who found Weight Watchers.

St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal Church (formerly Tompkins Avenue Presbyterian Church), ca. 1905. This red brick Victorian Gothic church was built in the early 1870s, by Massachusetts-born architect George Hathorne. However, by July, 1875, the church had been foreclosed on, and was rented to the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church. In 1889, the Congregational Church moved into a brand-new structure directly across MacDonough Street, and the original Tompkins Avenue Presbyterian Church was sold to St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal. Since 1944, the Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church has worshipped there.

As NYC begins to re-open after a prolonged period of quarantine, it’s a fitting moment to look back at these remarkable tenant portraits taken by HPD photographer Larry Racioppo in the late 1980s and 1990s. Archived at the Department of Records, the photos depict residents of distressed apartment buildings where HPD was stepping in to help; whether by conducting inspections, undertaking repairs, overhauling building management, or filling empty units. Through chance encounters, Racioppo was able to capture glimpses of home life that would have otherwise gone unseen. Now during the COVID-19 crisis, the photos feel especially resonant.

The Boy's High School 832 Marcy Avenue Designed by James W. Naughton, 1891–92 The monumental Boys’ School was designed in the Romanesque Revival style and features quintessential design elements, such as rounded-arch windows and doors, dormer windows, gables, terra-cotta ornament, smooth brick façades and a rough-cut ashlar stone foundation. The imposing corner towers create a picturesque silhouette between this massive structure and the sky. Along with the Girls’ High School, it was the first public secondary school in New York City, and both were designated New York City landmarks in 1983.

Central Presbyterian Church, 1909. This site is now the Siloam Presbyterian Church. The structure photographed here is the Central Presbyterian Church. The church was lost in a fire in the 1930s and was rebuilt in 1936, though shortly after the congregation moved to 1200 Dean Street to merge with the Bedford Presbyterian Church. The building sat empty for some years until another congregation moved in. Siloam Presbyterian, a historically Black church, was originally looking to build a new structure in the place of their original worship hall at the intersection of Fulton and Cranberry Streets. However, the construction of the Manhattan Bridge Approach encroached on a portion of the land they were looking to develop. After years of meeting in various congregation halls and community spaces, Siloam Presbyterian Church moved to the former Central Church in 1944. At 260 Jefferson Street, Siloam Presbyterian continued its legacy as a site that pioneered activism and social reform. Its Reverend, Milton Galamison, was a member of the Brooklyn Branch of the NAACP and an outspoken community activist. He founded the Parents' Workshop for Equality in New York Schools, which strived to end racial discrimination and offer all children equal opportunities, namely Black and Puerto Rican students who had been disenfranchised by the New York Public School System. In 1959, Siloam hosted the "Moslem Dinner and Surprise Program," a program run by Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam at the time. Galamison, of Siloam, was the leader of one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Bed-Stuy. By opening his doors to another religious group, Rev. Galamison "situated the Muslims...in a place encoded by a tradition that shared the NOI’s commitment to anti-racist work," according to Zaheer Ali in the African American Intellectual Society's "Black Perspectives." This move united the two leaders and was exemplary of how "local conditions placed different activists and their communities into shared spaces that offered the potential for the exchange and critique of ideas." In later years, Galamison organized two school boycotts: the first in 1964, called "Freedom Day," to pressure the Board of Education to integrate schools, and the second just a month later. In 2019, Siloam Presbyterian Church celebrated its 170th year anniversary.

"Throop Avenue, south from Halsey Street, showing the east side of the avenue. At Macon Street is the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Victory,1941."

Boy’s High School, Brooklyn Located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and built in 1891-92, this Romanesque Revival building is one of former Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn, James W. Naughton’s masterpieces. Considered to be the one of the most important public schools in Brooklyn, the building was designed to be an architectural statement, richly adorned with terracotta and accented by a round corner tower, gables and dormers. Landmarked in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, Boy’s High School remains “one of Brooklyn’s finest buildings”.