Public School 108

200 Linwood Street | Cypress Hills | built 1895

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1895

    James W. Naughton designs a three-part brick and sandstone school with end pavilions

    Public School 108 rises three stories over a rough stone basement, with a fourth attic floor pierced by dormers. Naughton arranged it as a seven-bay center section joined by recessed wings to three-bay end pavilions, a plan the landmarks commission linked to the Second Empire style, which had faded 25 years before. The walls are brick and Lake Superior sandstone.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1960

    Sal Abbracciamento, a graduate, leads the campaign that keeps P.S. 108 open

    According to Brownstoner, the city decided during the 1960s to close the school, by then in a lower-income Hispanic and Black part of East New York. Former student Sal Abbracciamento organized alumni, staff, parents, teachers, students and local politicians, and the Board of Education reversed itself. The community later named the school in his honor.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  3. 1981

    February 3

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates Public School 108 a landmark

    The commission held its public hearing on October 9, 1979, where three witnesses spoke in favor and nobody opposed, and designated the school on February 3, 1981. Its report singled out the Romanesque Revival design and its Second Empire plan, and called the school one of the few 19th-century school buildings in the city still serving its original purpose.

    “Three witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 4 buildings with stories in Cypress Hills