Eastern District Brooklyn High School, 1907

This high school was proposed in 1894 as a facility for the Eastern District (Williamsburg and Bushwick) of the city of Brooklyn. It welcomed its first students in 1900, two years after Brooklyn became a borough of the Greater New York City. Originally housed in the former Eastern District Library and two annex spaces, the new Eastern District High School was completed in 1907. Designed by the BOE Superintendent of Buildings, C.B.J. Snyder, the Gothic style, H-shaped building is clad in gray brick, limestone, and terracotta. The school suffered in the 1960s and 1970s from overcrowding, student unrest, and violence. Eastern District moved into a new building on Grand Street in 1981. (The school in its new location would eventually close after the 1995/1996 school year, reopening later in 1996 as the Grand Street Campus, housing several small high schools under one roof.) Today the 1907 building on Keap Street and Marcy Avenue serves as a girl's yeshiva called Bais Ruchel d'Satmar.