Fourteenth Ward Industrial School (Astor Memorial School)

256 Mott Street | Nolita | built 1889

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.

1889
Vaux & Radford design a Gothic industrial school funded by the Astor family
The Children's Aid Society builds the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School on Mott Street with funding from John Jacob Astor III, and the building becomes known as the Astor Memorial School. The firm Vaux & Radford, led by Central Park co-designer Calvert Vaux, designs the Victorian Gothic school to serve the neighborhood's poor children.
Source: Wikipedia
1920
The school closes and reopens as the Mulberry House community center
By the 1920s the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School closes as the Children's Aid Society's mission shifts. The building reopens as Mulberry House, a settlement-style community center offering Americanization classes, a library, and social programs for the neighborhood's largely Italian immigrant population.
Source: Ephemeral New York
1977
July 12
The city designates the former school a landmark
New York City designates the former Fourteenth Ward Industrial School a landmark on July 12, 1977. It joins the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places in the early 1980s as a contributing building in the Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District, by then converted to residential cooperative apartments.
Source: Wikipedia

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