This red brick schoolhouse (though painted in this 1935 photograph) is, in fact, the oldest continually used school building in New York! While a rumor persists that the building served as a hospital during the Civil War, more solid sources reflect that the school was constructed in 1867. Designed by then Superintendent of School Buildings (of the independent city of Brooklyn) Samuel Leonard, the Romanesque Revival style structure was built in sections over the next few decades. Today the schoolhouse is named for Oliver H. Perry, a naval hero of the War of 1812. In 2015 the school became the first public school in the city to offer dual-language Polish-English education, owing to the considerable Polish community in Greenpoint (60% of the children come from a Polish background).