The Friends Meeting House, seen at right, was completed in 1857 and is attributed to architect Charles T. Bunting. In 1867 the building, which served as the religious home of the community, also became the home to a Quaker school. The school began with one teacher and 17 students. The educational operations moved into a new building next door at 112 Schermerhorn in 1902. Today the meeting house is still in regular use as a house of worship.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

Plank Road Collapse Along Schermerhorn Street, September 9, 1929. Following heavy rains on the night of September 7th, the entire plank road on Schermerhorn Street between Smith Street and Boerum Place—in place for the construction of the IND Fulton Line— collapsed. The area of collapse was 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, from curb to curb. Just before 1:00 AM, four people stepped out of a car in front of 123 Schermerhorn Street and following a loud roar turned around to see the car they had just vacated no longer on the street, but instead deep in the excavation hole. No injuries were reported.

Famed Brooklyn architect (and Quaker) William B. Tubby designed the Richardsonian-Romanesque-style Friends School. Completed in 1902, the three- story red brick building had a few additons completed by the same architect (who was also an early graduate of the school while it was located in the Meeting House next door). Originally an elementary school, the 1902 building also included space for a kindergarden and was expanded to include a high school in 1907. In the early 1970s the school moved into 375 Pearl Street, a 1928, former Brooklyn Law School building.

Opening in 1867, the Brooklyn Friends School started in the basement of the Quaker meeting house in Boerum Hill. One of the earliest New York schools to encourage diversity amongst its students, it still operates today on Pearl Street.

Main entrance to the Central Court Building, Schermerhorn Street, 1932. Constructed between 1929-1932, the Central Court Building by Collins & Collins is somewhat surprising for its architectural style. By the late 1920s, the grand Renaissance Revival and Beaux-Arts styles had fallen somewhat out of vogue, in favor Art Deco and early modernist elements. Nonetheless, 120 Schermerhorn’s Classical motifs and elegant limestone cladding effectively convey civic authority.