MoHi residents remember schools’ architect

The ornate arches and gilded woodworking hanging overheard in the ballroom at the NY Youth Hostel proved an appropriate setting for a lecture about the relationship between architecture and public education.

The lecture from local historian Jean Arrington focused on school buildings designed by turn-of-the-century architect and public education administrator Charles B. J. Snyder.

Jim Torain said the lecture brought to mind a number of personal memories, as he attended P.S. 179, the Snyder-designed school in the “Old Community” of West 98th-99th streets, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park. The building was recently knocked down and replaced with a more standard blocked building.

“I have photographs going back to 1939,” said Torain, also a member of the Park West Neighborhood History Group who coordinates reunions of the old neighborhood. “In fact, I have a journal that I do for our reunion every year.”

Several of Snyder’s buildings—which he designed between 1891 and 1923 during his tenure as superintendent of school buildings for the New York City Board of Education—are located around Morningside Heights, including P.S 165 and P.S. 166.

Learning about the past reshapes perspectives on the present, said Barbara Earnest, another member of the Park West Neighborhood History Group.

“Just something like this one lecture, we’ll take a walk around, and look at the same buildings we’ve all looked [at], but look at it with new eyes,” Earnest said.

Peter Arndtsen, district manager of the Columbus/Amsterdam Business District and one of the organizers of the event, said it’s important to understand what surrounds you.

“I do think that most of our talks have a relevance to today. That is not dead information. It’s really important to know how things developed—you know, we’re living amongst these buildings, living in the buildings in some cases,” Arndtsen said.

Many in the nearly-full audience said personal memories of attending Snyder-designed schools, interest in local history, and strong feelings about the importance of preserving historical buildings drew them to the event.

John Mattera, one of the younger members in what was mostly an older audience, said that he came because he attended P.S. 206 in Brooklyn and suspected that it was one of the schools Snyder had designed.

He wanted to know “who was the guy behind those schools,” after he had learned about Snyder’s innovative designs and efforts to improve the architecture in public schools.

Arrington said in her lecture that it had become her “goal in life” to uncover the significance of Snyder’s work in public school architecture and compile a list of schools he designed that are still standing.

“I’ve taught English my whole life, I don’t have any training in architecture,” Arrington said. “I now have been to parts of the city that I would never have gotten to, you know, and within two or three years, I got all over the city, walking. And I luckily didn’t even know about Google Street View or Google Maps, anything … I’m glad I didn’t—that was fabulous.”

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