Lincoln Correctional Facility

31 Central Park North | Harlem | built 1925

Open on the map9 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. 1914

    The building starts serving as a Young Women's Hebrew Association branch

    From 1914 the building at 31-33 West 110th Street, facing the north side of Central Park, served as a YWHA branch (Young Women's Hebrew Association). It was also used to house Jewish women who had recently immigrated and needed help.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1942

    The U.S. Army buys the building for a soldiers' rest center

    In 1942 the building was sold to the U.S. Army, which briefly used it as a place for local soldiers to rest and relax during World War II. Afterward it housed the Northside Center for Child Development, which carried out psychological research, as well as the experimental New Lincoln School.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1948

    Parents open the New Lincoln School, whose building was the 110th Street Community Center

    After Teachers College closed the combined Lincoln and Horace Mann schools in 1946, parents of Lincoln pupils started the New Lincoln School in 1948 to carry on progressive, experimental teaching. Its building had previously been the 110th Street Community Center, an eight-story building with a basement swimming pool. Further renovation provided a cafeteria, classrooms, laboratories and a library.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1948

    The Northside Center for Child Development moves in overlooking the park

    Northside Center, founded in 1946 by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, outgrew its first home in the Dunbar Houses and moved into the New Lincoln School building at 31 West 110th Street within two years. It took space on the sixth floor, overlooking Central Park. Northside stayed until moving to Schomburg Towers at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue in 1974.

    Source: kennethclark.commons.gc.cuny.edu

  5. 1958

    The New Lincoln School offers a scholarship to Little Rock Nine student Minnijean Brown

    In 1958, after Minnijean Brown was expelled from Little Rock's Central High School, the New Lincoln School offered her a scholarship at the urging of its director, John Brooks, and she accepted. The school's board in the 1950s included the psychologist Kenneth Clark and the United Nations official Ralph Bunche. One of its stated goals was to help students relate constructively to people of different races, religions and backgrounds.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1974

    The New Lincoln School leaves West 110th Street for East 77th Street

    In 1974 the New Lincoln School moved to 210 East 77th Street. The school merged with the Walden School in 1988 and closed in 1991. Its old West 110th Street site later became the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a work-release center with minimum security.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1976

    The building reopens as Lincoln Correctional Facility

    The building opened as a prison in 1976, a minimum-security work-release facility for men that held mainly drug offenders. It housed roughly 275 people. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on May 17, 2019, that it would close on September 1 as part of the state budget, and it closed on that date.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2019

    May 17

    Governor Cuomo announces that Lincoln Correctional Facility will close

    Governor Andrew Cuomo said on May 17, 2019, that the prison would shut on September 1 under the state budget for 2020, which had been approved on April 1. The prison had held roughly 275 men, mostly drug offenders in work release, and about 5 percent of them were white-collar offenders. Talk of its future ranged from condos to affordable housing or a women's jail.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2023

    May 29

    The vacant prison is offered as a temporary shelter for asylum seekers

    The building sat vacant after closing in 2019. On May 29, 2023, New York City officials said the state would make the former Lincoln Correctional Facility available as a temporary place to house asylum seekers.

    “…it remained vacant until May 29, 2023, when NYC officials said the state would provide the facility as a temporary site to house asylum seekers…”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 46 buildings with stories in Harlem