Mott Street Industrial School, ca. 1890.

256-258 Mott Street once housed the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, also known as the Mott Street Industrial School and the Astor Memorial School. The structure was built in 1888-1889 as the Children's Aid Society. Construction of the project was funded by John Jacob Astor III, who named the school in memory of his wife, a lifelong supporter of the Children's Aid Society.

The Society was founded by Charles Loring Brace. Brace, a philanthropist, noticed declining conditions in New York and decided "something must be done to meet the increasing crime and poverty among the destitute children of New York. [The Society's] objects are to help this class, by opening Sunday meetings and Industrial Schools." The Mott Street building is the only of the Children's Aid Society buildings to be designed solely as a school: others offered accommodations as well as a few classrooms. From 1889 and 1913, 256-258 Mott Street hosted night and day classes to serve the large working-class Italian immigrant community of the neighborhood.

Architects Vaux & Radford, who built a number of other buildings for the Children's Aid Society over their careers, designed the school. The four-story structure is built in the Victorian Gothic Style, complete with carved stone, terra cotta, molded and colored brick, and arches topped by Tudor roses. The crowning feature of the building's facade is its three-sided oriel. An architectural critic at the time said the school was "of real interest as works of architecture as well as monuments of a noble charity."

In 1913, a larger structure was built as part of the Children's Aid Society on Elizabeth and Hester Streets. The building was leased to the New York Association for the Improvement of the Conditions of the Poor, who eventually bought the structure and renamed it the Mulberry Community Center. The new community served a variety of functions, including offering medical and dental services in addition to English classes. At a point later, the structure's interior was remodeled for industrial use. The building was subsequently converted into apartments, which still occupy the former school. 256-258 Mott Street was designated a New York City landmark in 1977 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.