There's another one of those architecturally grand public school buildings designed 100 years ago by C.B.J. Snyder at First Avenue and East 117th Street. Walking by that particular corner of East Harlem, one will find number 346 East 117th Street with a cinder-blocked main entrance and relatively new looking plywood covering some exposed window up top. There's not a lot of information about this building out there and from what we can gather based on DOB records, it looks like the school has been empty since the mid 1990's (?). With that said, instead of fighting over public school space, maybe the government should let one of the charter school organizations have this building and restore it back to a school? Otherwise, a PS90 condo conversion would do nicely here as it did in Central Harlem:
LINK. Archival photo courtesy
NYPL
I remember this from a massey knakal offenring.around 2006.14.5 million for school and plans to build a condo.some gut work was started then stop.
ReplyDeleteI believe a museum of some sorts briefly took up residence in this building, but it did not survive.
ReplyDeleteThis building was developed into coops/condos/some such in 1990s, but was promptly turned into a studio for the manufacture of porno films. The "filmakers" were, eventually, run out, and the building left in disrepair, until a couple of years ago when it was sealed off. I saw a real estate listing for this building not too long ago. In any event, it's been privately owned for at least 15 years now; so using it as a school again is moot.
ReplyDeleteThis is a grand, gorgeous building-- the city should force developers to rehab such structures FIRST before throwing glass boxes left and right.
ReplyDeleteUh, Anon. . . the city can’t FORCE developers to rehab structures as nice a thought as that is. It’s, like, you know, against the law.
ReplyDeleteI haven't come across much on P.S. 85's history, other than the fact that the legendary politician Vito Marcantonio went there, as did his friend (and later mob boss) Thomas "Three Fingers Brown" Luchese.
ReplyDeleteThis town is filled with so much opportunity potential...
ReplyDeleteThey can't force people to rehab old beautiful buildings instead of glass boxes. But they CAN provide tax incentives to make this more attractive. And they should!
ReplyDeleteOkay guys, the address today is now 2269 or 2271 1st Avenue so it was hard to get the right information. Based on that address, 3 work permits for an apartment conversion with store fronts were filed from 2007-2009. The most recent ones have been rejected by the DOB. The entire building was sold in 2007 for $11.8 million.
ReplyDelete