Evander Childs High School, May 11, 1938. Evander Childs, a lifelong New Yorker and graduate of City College, was a teacher and administrator in city schools for over fifty years. Childs died in post, in 1912: stricken, “he fell forward with a cry and struck heavily on his desk” in the principal’s office of P.S. 10 in Morrisania. In 1930, the Department of Education named its new, 4,700 student Williamsbridge high school for Childs. The massive Italian Renaissance campus was part of a flurry of school construction in the late 1920s. In 2008, the high school closed after years of poor performance, and was split into six specialized schools located in the Childs campus.

Rock outcrop on Magenta Street, east of White Plains Road, June 16, 1938. The land to the left would be set aside for the New York City Housing Authority’s Gun Hill Houses, a six-building development which opened in 1950. The rock formation is still visible on Magenta Street.

Public School 76, ca. 1930. In 1968, P.S. 76 was one of fifteen city schools at the forefront of standardized testing. The schools were selected to pilot a teletypewriter testing program, “the first in any large city,” according to the New York Times.

Intersection of Gun Hill Road and Bronxwood Avenue, ca. 1917. This view is westward along Gun Hill Road. The vacant lot at left would become the site of the Evander Childs High School, completed in 1930. Gun Hill Road station of the IRT White Plains Road Line (today’s 2/5 trains) is visible in the distance, over Gun Hill Road. This station opened in March, 1917. A further elevated structure is visible in the background. This may be the Gun Hill Road spur of the IRT Third Avenue line, under construction; this segment opened to traffic in October, 1920.