Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarten
236 President Street | Carroll Gardens | built 1897
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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.
- 1897
Elmira Christian buys a mansion and its garden lot to build a memorial kindergarten for her husband
Elmira Christian commissioned a model kindergarten in memory of her late husband Hans. In January 1897 she bought the 75-by-100-foot property at 238 President Street, which had a mansion and a 37-foot-wide unbuilt garden beside it. She had the kindergarten built on that garden, committing $10,000 to its construction and giving another $10,000 as an endowment to the Brooklyn Free Kindergarten Society, which called it the society's first large endowment. The mansion became a home for Methodist deaconesses.
“…she commissioned a kindergarten building on the garden adjacent to the mansion, and dedicated 238 President Street for full use as the Deaconess Home…”
- 1897
The kindergarten is planned with a visitors' gallery, a stained-glass bay and basement sculpture rooms
The architects Hough & Deuell designed the building as a model kindergarten, with a reception room near the entrance and a sunny classroom lit by a large bay window whose upper part was stained glass. A gallery let visitors watch the lessons and let mothers join in, and rooms in the basement were set aside for sculpture, the final and most complex of Froebel's "occupations." Its Beaux-Arts front stood apart from the red-brick and brownstone houses around it.
- 1898
Brooklyn dedicates its first building made only for a kindergarten
The Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarten was dedicated on February 5, 1898. A report of the Brooklyn Free Kindergarten Society called it an occasion of unusual interest because, as far as anyone knew, no other building in the metropolitan area had been intended solely for a kindergarten. The Landmarks Preservation Commission calls it the first purpose-built kindergarten in Brooklyn.
“…so far as known, no other building intended expressly and solely for the use of a kindergarten exists elsewhere in the metropolitan district…”
- 1908
The Deaconess Home runs an industrial school for immigrants in the kindergarten building
From 1908 to 1938 the Deaconess Home next door ran an industrial school here, offering seventeen courses that included basketry, shirtwaist making, calisthenics and plain sewing. It also held religious classes, clubs, a Bible school and summer trips for mothers and children, meant to serve the area's immigrant families. The school left in 1938, when the Deaconess Home moved to 902 President Street in Park Slope.
“…an industrial school ran seventeen courses in "basketry, shirt-waist making, calisthenics, plain sewing, card stitching, and fancy work" in the Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarten from 1908 to 1938…”
- 1914
A Methodist society sues to take back the building from the kindergarten society
The Brooklyn Church Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church owned the building, and the Brooklyn Free Kindergarten Society had the use of it until kindergartens became common in Brooklyn's public schools. The church society argued that point had come, and in 1914 its lawsuit reached the Kings County Supreme Court. The judgment recorded kindergarten teaching in 14 of 120 public elementary schools in December 1897 and 124 of 166 in December 1910. The church society then retook the building, and the kindergarten moved to Christ Church in September 1915.
“…in December 1910, there were 166 elementary schools in the borough of Brooklyn, in 124 of which was the kindergarten system taught…”
- 1949
Rev. Alberto Baez begins holding First Spanish Methodist services in the kindergarten
Around 1949 the Rev. Alberto Baez and his wife Thalia, who lived next door at 238 President Street, began using the former kindergarten for services of the First Spanish Methodist Church. They founded New York City's oldest Spanish-language Methodist church. Their son Albert was a prominent physicist, and their granddaughters are the folk musicians Joan Baez and Mimi Farina.
- 2018
The Landmarks Commission hears 22 speakers in favor of designating the kindergarten
At the Landmarks Preservation Commission's public hearing on June 26, 2018, twenty-two people testified in favor of designation, among them representatives of the Norwegian Immigration Association, the American Scandinavian Society, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and the Historic Districts Council. Only a representative of the owner spoke in opposition. The commission's designation report is dated September 18, 2018.
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