120 West 140th Street, 1920. Public School 139 (also called the Frederick Douglass Junior High School) was likely constructed in the first years of the 20th century. In the 1930s and 1940s school had a number of well-known teachers including poet Countee Cullen and James Allen, president of the New York State NAACP for some time. Today the former school building serves as a senior center.