Former Public School 64

History and architecture

(Former) Public School 64 was designed by master school architect C.B.J. Snyder in the French Renaissance Revival style and built in 1904-06. This was a period of tremendous expansion and construction of new schools due to the consolidation of New York City and its recently centralized school administration, school reforms, and a burgeoning immigrant population. As the school board’s Superintendent of School Buildings, C.B.J. Snyder created a large body of innovative and beautiful school buildings that served as visual reminders of the important civic role of public education.

P.S. 64 is designed with Snyder’s innovative H-plan, which he created to provide light and air to classrooms in schools built on mid-block sites in congested city locations. With the H-plan, schools were organized around two courtyards that 2 also helped insulate the classrooms from city noise. These courtyards provided the luxury of open space in densely packed neighborhoods and the schools became immediately recognizable symbols of civic pride and benevolence.

Additionally P.S. 64 is one of the first and the oldest extent elementary school to include an auditorium with direct access from the street. This innovation was introduced by Snyder in 1903 and allowed schools to function as community centers, as they began to take on an expanded role in the lives of the people of the neighborhood.

The auditorium provided a generous public space for evening lectures, and educational programs that helped acculturate the area’s large numbers of immigrants to their new country. By setting the auditorium partially underground and using its roof as a play yard, Snyder was able to create more useable space in an already cramped lot. Throughout its history, the auditorium of P.S. 64 was frequently open to the community, serving as the venue for cultural lectures, political speeches, and theatrical events.

As a school, P.S. 64 was noted for educational innovation and experimentation. Its second principal, William E. Grady, was a supporter of the Ettinger or Pre-Vocational Plan, in which seventh and eighth grade students received vocational training as a way to enrich their curriculum and try to keep more students interested and in school. The founder of the progressive Little Red Schoolhouse, Elizabeth Irwin, taught at the school from 1912-21 and during this period devised a classification system for students predicated on the scores of their IQ tests.

Distinguished alumni of P.S. 64 include Yip Harburg, who wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, Sam Levene, who played Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, and film director Joseph Mankiewicz.

The school board closed the school in 1977 but, in the spirit of Snyder’s original vision, the building continued to function as a busy community center. Just as it had served as a center of education and acculturation for European immigrants of the early twentieth century, this building was adapted to the needs of a new generation of immigrants. It was taken over by CHARAS/El Bohío a group formed in the 1960s to meet the needs of the Latino community.

In 1998, the city sold the building at auction and it was purchased by a private owner.

CHARAS was evicted in 2001 after prolonged litigation and the building has been empty since that time.