For Landmark East Harlem's Back to School Series feature, we are exploring the beautiful historic schools that have educated generations of East Harlem children. The schools highlighted in this tour were all built before 1950. Most of them were built in the first few decades of the 20th century, with the majority still in use today - some as schools, while others have been converted to community resource centers and housing. Sadly, some of these architectural gems have not survived the test of time and changes in development patterns.

Public School 109 was designed by C. B. J. Snyder, superintendent of school buildings for the Board of Education from 1891 to 1923. Roughly 400 schools were constructed during his tenure, when the city’s population was growing and new laws mandated children’s education. Snyder was a great innovator, incorporating advances in fireproofing and air circulation, as well as laying out buildings in an H-plan, like P.S. 109, to increase light and air to classrooms and provide opportunities for recreation. With its many decorative details, the Collegiate Gothic style building is a great example of Snyder’s emphasis on the power of aesthetics in architecture. The school was decommissioned in 1995 and sat neglected for about 15 years until its restoration and conversion to artists’ housing. It reopened in 2015 as El Barrio’s Artspace/PS109, holding 89 units of affordable live/work space and 10,000 square feet for arts organizations. Artspace is a nonprofit that operates 35 arts facilities in 15 states. The Former Public School 109 is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

“308 and 310 East 94th Street, south side, east of Second Ave. Upon the excavation at the right was constructed a 2-story garage (No. 304-306). April 21, 1917.” The storefront at 308 East 94th reads J Reich Fancy Groceries.

Third Avenue, North from 95th Street, 1876. Telegraph lines along Third Avenue and buildings visible in the distance indicate the late-19th century transition from farmland to the Upper East Side’s familiar street grid. In this photo, Third Avenue is likely being prepared for the construction of the elevated railway tracks. The Third Avenue El’s Upper East Side stations opened in December 1878. Wooden advertising boards for Murtaugh’s Dumb-Waiters and Rising Sun Stove Polish are visible on the East side of Third Avenue, while graffiti on rocks lining the West side promotes “cigars” and “liver oil pills.”

304 East 94th Street, ca. 1917. Constructed as a garage in the late 1910s or early 1920s as a garage during the influx of cars in the city, this 94th Street building has been home to Telesca-Heyman for more than half a century. Telesca-Heyman is a custom cabinet shop which alters, resizes and retrofits wood furniture and architectural woodwork.

Congregation Orach Chaim at 1461 Lexington Avenue, 1927. Founded in 1879, the Orthodox congregation’s synagogue opened in its present location in 1907.

97th Street, between First and Second Avenue, 1929. The Metropolitan Hospital dates to 1875 when it was founded as the Homeopathic Hospital on Ward's Island. The medical facility moved to Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island) in 1894, and in 1955 it moved again to a campus in Manhattan, here, between First to Second Avenues and from East 97th to East 99th Streets, where it remains today.

96th Street Branch, NYPL, September 24, 1928. Constructed between 1904 and 1905 to the plans of architectural firm Babb, Cook & Willard, the 96th Street Library is a Italian Renaissance Revival building. Typical of other upper Manhattan Carnegie libraries, it is a mid block three-story, three-bay structure. The library closed for six months in 2012 for HVAC and additional infrastructure updates.

“Tenement conditions, 1840-1842 Second Avenue, c. 1910.” The Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side was home to working class immigrant communities from Europe, most notably Germany. In the first decade of the 1900s, and especially following the General Slocum steamboat disaster (which killed over 1000 community members), German immigrant families began to move from “Kleindeutschland” on the Lower East Side to Yorkville.

East Harlem encompasses a large section of northeastern Manhattan bounded by 96th Street, 142nd Street, Fifth Avenue and the Harlem River. Also known as El Barrio, the area is famous as one of the largest predominantly Latino neighborhoods in the city. Echoing the city’s development patterns, the neighborhood was largely built in response to the availability of transportation. In the 1830s, tracks were laid along Park Avenue for horse-drawn streetcars and later, the tracks became the New York and Harlem Railroad line, with train stops in East Harlem. Several resorts were built to take advantage of the higher elevations with views toward the growing city to the south and residential estates were built near the waterfront. Development increased with the construction of the Second and Third Avenue elevated rail lines to 125th Street in 1879- 80, and with the arrival of the subway in 1919. Rowhouses, tenements and flats buildings housed the area’s largely working class population, while Third Avenue became its first commercial thoroughfare. Early residents included German, Irish, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish and Italian immigrants, the latter making up a particularly significant group. At its peak in 1930, East Harlem was home to roughly 100,000 Italian-Americans, many more than the Lower East Side’s Little Italy. It was also the founding location of the Genovese crime family, one of five organized crime families formed in 1931 making up the Italian American Mafia in New York City. One of East Harlem’s most famous Italian-American residents was Vito Marcantonio, famed lawyer, member of the American Labor party and an early leader in the movements for civil rights and Puerto Rican independence. He was extremely popular with both the Italian and Puerto Rican communities, representing the neighborhood in the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms from 1939-51. Most of the tangible references to Italian East Harlem are gone, as the community began to leave after World War II, but a few are identified in the brochure and some storied Italian businesses continue to thrive, including Patsy’s Pizzeria and Rao’s restaurant. Soon after World War I, a large community of Puerto Ricans and South and Central Americans had settled in East Harlem, with a second influx after World War II, leading to the lasting monikers “Spanish Harlem” and later “El Barrio.” The first Puerto Rican elected to public office in the U.S., Oscar García Rivera, was a resident of East Harlem, and represented East and Central Harlem in the New York State Assembly from 1937-40. García Rivera was a strong advocate for child labor laws, workers’ rights and anti-discrimination legislation. The Hellgate Post Office on East 110th Street was renamed in his honor in 2002. In the mid-20th century, urban renewal resulted in the construction of subsidized housing projects by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). With funds from the 1949 Federal Housing Act, Robert Moses led an initiative to clear sections of the neighborhood, resulting in the construction of 24 public housing developments, in which 30% of East Harlem’s population resides. The bankruptcy of New York City in the early 1970s and broader municipal disinvestment hit East Harlem particularly hard. Lots were cleared for investment that never came, leading to a fragmented landscape that exacerbated issues seen across the city: urban flight, race riots, drug abuse and poverty. However, East Harlem residents fought back with strong expressions of their identity and political will, with inspiring murals that continue to be a neighborhood hallmark today. In 2015, the city announced that East Harlem would be one of several neighborhoods in the five boroughs to be rezoned for increased density as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Housing New York plan. Many expect the plan to mark a new era in the evolution of East Harlem, as new development has already destroyed historic buildings and shifted the neighborhood’s socioeconomic makeup and prevailing culture.

Sub Station Seven was one of seven buildings that provided power to the elevated trains operated by the Manhattan Railway Company on Second, Third, Sixth and Ninth Avenues. These substations received 11,000-volt alternating current from the power house at 74th Street and the East River and converted it to 625-volt direct current for the third-rail distribution system to the trains. The power station and substations began operating in late 1901, and all trains were running by electric power by the spring of 1903. No. 7 was the primary supply of power for the upper portion of the Lexington Avenue subway from 1918 into at least the late 1970s, when other substations were constructed underground. It is the only Manhattan substation that dates from the electrification of the pre-subway elevated system and also retains its original appearance.

1770 Second Avenue, June 7, 1940. The small two-story building has hosted a number of divergent tenants. In 1904 a Henry D. Hoppe sold milk (and likely other items) here. In the 1920s it was the home of the Lexington Cigar Company. In the mid century, a firm of plumbing and heating contractors worked from here. Since 1990 the building has cycled through a series of restaurant, with its most recent tenant, Manny's (a sports bar) closing in 2017. A fun fact about this building. In 2007 the lot was considered by the MTA as a possible location for a vent plant at the southern end of the planned 96th Street Station on the Second Avenue line. The fact that the building only had a single commercial tenant made the impact of demolition much lower than other options in the neighborhood. In the end, concerns about the structural stability of the neighboring buildings (had this one been razed) caused the MTA to look elsewhere for the vent plant. And this tiny two-story survivor remains!

Second Avenue El trestle at East 94th Street; March 6, 1941.

Public School 150, 1920. Designed by famed school designer C.B.J. Snyder and completed in 1904, Public School 150 functioned as an elementary school until 1927. That year it became the home of the Hunter Model School, a laboratory school for teacher education established in 1870. The model school was joined in the building by the prestigious Hunter College High School. When the Hunter schools moved on to new buildings in 1940, the red brick school became Machine and Metal Trades High School. Today the 1904 building with Dutch Renaissance and Collegiate Gothic facade details houses the Life Sciences Secondary School.

Public School 109, June 7, 1940. Public School 109 was designed by C. B. J. Snyder, superintendent of school buildings for the Board of Education from 1891 to 1923. Roughly 400 schools were constructed during his tenure, when the city’s population was growing and new laws mandated children’s education. Snyder was a great innovator, incorporating advances in fireproofing and air circulation, as well as laying out buildings in an H-plan, like P.S. 109, to increase light and air to classrooms and provide opportunities for recreation. With its many decorative details, the Collegiate Gothic style building is a great example of Snyder’s emphasis on the power of aesthetics in architecture. The school was decommissioned in 1995 and sat neglected for about 15 years until its restoration and conversion to artists’ housing. It reopened in 2015 as El Barrio’s Artspace/PS109, holding 89 units of affordable live/work space and 10,000 square feet for arts organizations.

Second Avenue Railway Car Barn, April 25, 1941. This block-long, fortress-like structure was constructed in 1870s to house the horses that powered the lines of the Second Avenue Railroad. When the railway was electrified in the 1890s, the building was used as the car barn for the rolling stock. The electrified streetcar lines were replaced in the early 1930s with buses, and this building was abandoned until it was razed in 1941. In 1947 a new 1.5 acre park was opened on the land, named for some former famous residents of the neighborhood. The Marx Brothers, children of Jewish emigrants from Germany and France, grew up in Yorkville before making it big as vaudeville performers and movie stars. As of 2018, plans for a playground-replacing 670-foot tower has stirred controversy between developers and the local community and preservationists regarding the planned structure and its effect on the neighborhood.

“East 94th Street, west from, but not including York Ave. Note in the foreground construction for the East River Drive. March 7, 1936.” Designed by Robert Moses, construction on the East River Drive (later, FDR East River Drive) began in 1934. The section from 125th Street to 92nd Street is the original 1934 construction, which was planned to as a controlled-access approach to the Triborough Bridge (opened 1936.) Today, the NYCHA Stanley M. Isaacs Houses (1965) and John Haynes Holmes Towers (1969) sit between First Avenue and the FDR Drive.

“E. 94th Street, north side, east from Third Avenue, as viewed across a clearance at the S.E. corner of this point, September 13, 1938." The Third Avenue El was the last elevated line to operate in Manhattan (apart from sections of the 1 train in Upper Manhattan).