Long Island Business College
143 South 8th Street | Williamsburg | built 1892
Open on the map11 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1891
Henry Wright buys a South 8th Street lot and lays the cornerstone for his business college
Henry C. Wright, who had run his Wright's Business College in Williamsburg since 1873, bought a lot on the north side of South 8th Street in 1890 for $18,500. Architect William H. Gaylor filed the building application in April 1891, and the cornerstone was laid on June 23, 1891. The school was to take the name Long Island Business College when it moved in.
“In April of 1891, architect William H. Gaylor filed the application for the new building, and on June 23, 1891, its cornerstone was laid.”
- 1892
The Long Island Business College opens with a reception attended by Mayor Boody
The new school building opened on the evening of February 5, 1892, with a reception whose guests included Brooklyn Mayor David A. Boody. The Brooklyn Eagle reported it lit entirely by electricity, with room for 800 students and a 60-by-60-foot assembly room on the ground floor. Wright, who put the cost above $90,000, called it perhaps the only building in the country built solely for business education.
“On the evening of February 5, 1892, the doors of the new building were thrown open for a reception, with guests including Brooklyn Mayor David A. Boody.”
- 1892
William H. Gaylor designs the college as a Romanesque Revival and Second Empire school
Gaylor modeled the college on Brooklyn's recent public schools, mixing Romanesque Revival and Second Empire styles with touches of other fashions of the day. The facade has rough-faced brownstone trim, five parts with a central tower and end pavilions, and slate-covered mansard roofs. The Landmarks Preservation Commission calls the building well preserved today.
“Gaylor based the school's design on Brooklyn's recent public schools. The building, which combines the Romanesque Revival and Second Empire styles…”
- 1897
Future mayor John F. Hylan studies here at night for the Regents exam, then graduates from law school in 1897
John F. Hylan, who moved to Brooklyn in 1888, worked as an engineer on an elevated railroad while studying at night at the Long Island Business College for the state Regents exam. After passing it he enrolled at New York Law School, from which he graduated in 1897. He later served as mayor of New York City from 1918 to 1925.
“Among the school's pupils in the 1890s was John F. Hylan, who would go on to serve as New York City's mayor from 1918 to 1925.”
- 1898
Eugene V. Debs fills the assembly hall for the Brooklyn Philosophical Association
From 1892 to 1918 the ground-floor assembly hall hosted the Brooklyn Philosophical Association, a leading freethought society. In February 1898 a lecture by socialist and labor leader Eugene V. Debs packed the hall to its doors. Anarchist Emma Goldman spoke there at least twice, in 1898 and 1906, and suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt followed in 1901.
- 1902
Anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock faces a hostile freethought crowd at the college
Anthony Comstock was a postal special agent empowered to arrest senders of material deemed obscene, and he headed the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. He spoke to the Brooklyn Philosophical Association in 1902. His audience was made up of exponents of free thought and free love. The Brooklyn Eagle reported that in all his vice-hunting career he had never faced such a turbulent throng.
“Never in all of his vice hunting career did Mr. Comstock face such a turbulent throng," the Eagle reported…”
- 1922
The city buys the building and it reopens as Public School 166
After Drake Business School took over the college in 1920 and moved it to the Shubert Theater Building, the City of New York bought the South 8th Street building in 1921. It reopened the next year as Public School 166, which had earlier been at South 4th and Havemeyer Streets. It stayed a city school through the 1930s.
“The Long Island Business College building was sold to the City of New York in 1921 and reopened the following year as Public School 166…”
- 1943
Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary buys the building from the city
In March 1943 the city sold the former school to Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America, which had been at 505 Bedford Avenue. Founded in Williamsburg in 1938 by Vichna Kaplan, it was the first such school in the country, training teachers for Bais Yaakov schools and also serving as a high school for boarding and day students. It stayed until the mid-1960s.
- 1946
Auschwitz survivor Reise Gruenzweig enrolls at the seminary, the first of many young survivors
After the war the seminary drew studious young Holocaust survivors. The first was 14-year-old Reise Gruenzweig, who had survived Auschwitz and then stowed away on a ship to the United States; she was held for months on Ellis Island before joining relatives in Brooklyn. She enrolled in 1946. By 1948, European refugees made up 175 of the 600 pupils at the school.
“The first was 14-year-old Reise Gruenzweig, who was a survivor of Auschwitz, where most of her family was killed.”
- 1984
A group of artists buys the building and converts it to lofts
Beth Jacob Seminary sold the building in 1984 to a group of artists that included Susan Weil, Bernard Kirschenbaum, Hiroshi Kariya, Doug Ohlson and Lars Cederholm. They soon turned it into loft spaces, and it remains an artists' co-op.
- 2013
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Long Island Business College
The commission designated the building an individual landmark on September 17, 2013, after a June hearing where speakers included representatives of Councilmember Diana Reyna and the Historic Districts Council. It cited the architecture and also the building's place in Williamsburg's history, from the business college and freethought lectures to the Beth Jacob seminary and its young Holocaust survivors.
Nearby
- Peter Luger Steak House848 Driggs Avenue | 5 entries
- Williamsburgh Savings Bank (The Weylin)175 Broadway | 9 entries
- Meadowsweet149 Broadway | 3 entries
- Forman Building195 Broadway | 7 entries
- Kings County Savings Bank135 Broadway | 7 entries
- New England Congregational Church179 South 9th Street | 7 entries