Public School 102 (City Island School)

190 Fordham Street | City Island | built 1898

Open on the map4 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1896

    May 26

    The city buys the island's high point, said to hold its first cemetery, for a new school

    City Island's old frame schoolhouse had been judged dilapidated and unsanitary, so the city paid Charles L. and Phoebe Berge $4,500 for a 115-by-380-foot lot on Fordham Avenue. The site was reputed to be the highest ground on the island, and local legend placed the island's earliest burial ground there.

    “115-by-380-foot site, reputedly the highest point on the island and by legend the location of its earliest cemetery…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1898

    October

    Public School 102 opens with about 400 pupils after three years of false starts

    Architect C.B.J. Snyder redrew the school several times as officials pressed to cut its cost, one builder walked away from his contract, and the Board of Estimate refused bonds over "too much woodwork." Herman C. Probst finally built the two-story Georgian Revival building, with a pedimented center pavilion, Palladian window and cupola, for $53,906. It opened with eight classrooms, basement playrooms and furniture mostly supplied through the Superintendent of State Prisons.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1975

    The school closes and the building becomes a community center and nautical museum

    Renumbered P.S. 17 in 1903 and named The City Island School in 1916, the building stopped serving as a school when P.S. 175 replaced it in 1975. A Save the Schoolhouse Committee formed the next year, and groups including a historical nautical museum, an art center and a Police Athletic League youth program leased it. When the city sold it for $500,000 in 1988, a covenant required that half of the older section serve museum and community uses.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 2007

    Fire destroys the old school's entrance and portico, which are rebuilt a year later

    By 2007 part of the 1890s building and its 1929-30 addition had become the 16-unit Nautical Winds Condominium. That year a fire damaged the front of the original school, including its entrance and portico. Architect Kaitsen Woo re-created both in 2008, helped by a grant from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and the city made the building a landmark on December 20, 2011.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 5 buildings with stories in City Island