Newtown High School

48-01 90th Street | Elmhurst | built 1930

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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. 1866

    Newtown's school district puts up a wooden schoolhouse on this block, an earlier building on the site

    The Newtown School District replaced a schoolhouse that held only 170 of the township's 520 school-age children. Its new two-story wooden building on this site had six classrooms and room for 400 pupils from Newtown village and the nearby farms.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1900

    May 4

    A brick Boring & Tilton wing opens after consolidation snarls its construction, an earlier building on the site

    In 1897 the Newtown School Board bought eight adjoining lots and moved the old schoolhouse to a new foundation to clear room for a three-story stone-and-brick wing by Boring & Tilton that, joined to the old wooden school, would seat 800. Work began in early 1898 but stalled over costs and the contractor, and again when the new citywide Board of Education took over the job after the five boroughs merged. The wing finally opened on May 4, 1900.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1918

    February

    A drafting-room fire destroys every drawing for the school's planned addition

    By 1916 the school was so crowded that some classes met in closets and cloakrooms. In February 1918 a fire in the drafting rooms of the Superintendent of School Buildings burned the complete set of more than 225 sheets of drawings for the Newtown project, representing over a year of work. No copies had been made, so the plans had to be redrawn while the Board paid for a temporary building to ease the overcrowding.

    “In February, a fire in the drafting rooms in the Superintendent's office destroyed the entire set of over 225 sheets of drawings for the Newtown project.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1921

    September

    The new wing opens with an auditorium named for longtime principal James Darius Dillingham

    Snyder's wing opened in September 1921. It added fifteen classrooms, five laboratories, two gymnasiums and an 1,100-seat auditorium called Dillingham Hall. Dr. James Darius Dillingham was principal from 1894 into the mid-1930s and oversaw every expansion of the school in those years. The enlarged school now held 1,507 students and 68 faculty.

    “…an 1,100 seat auditorium named Dillingham Hall at the time of completion. Dr. James Darius Dillingham served as the school's principal from 1894 through the mid-1930s…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1921

    C. B. J. Snyder gives the school a 169-foot tower and Flemish gables recalling Dutch Newtown

    Snyder designed the oldest surviving part of the school in the Flemish Renaissance Revival style, a nod to Elmhurst's origins as a Dutch colony; few New York public schools use it. He carried over the stepped gables of the Boring and Tilton building and set a 169-foot tower with a cupola and turrets at the center. Seen across the neighborhood, the tower supplied the school's slogan, "We Tower Above the Rest."

    “The tower is visible throughout the neighborhood and gives the school its slogan: "We Tower Above the Rest.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1931

    February 2

    Students move into two new wings after boulders slow the excavation

    The 1921 wing was full the day it opened, so Superintendent of School Buildings Walter C. Martin drew two plainer Flemish-style wings. Digging the foundations in early 1930 turned up boulders that held up the work, but once they were cleared both wings were nearly done by year's end. Students entered on February 2, 1931, gaining 1,716 seats, thirty-five classrooms, another gym, shops and a "girls' corrective training room."

    “…delayed by the discovery of boulders on the site while the foundation was being excavated. After they were removed, progress was very rapid.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  7. 1958

    February

    An International Style wing replaces the 1900 building after strikes and a fire delay it

    Judging the 1898-1900 wing beyond renovation, the Board of Education hired Maurice Salo & Associates of Manhattan for a $1.6 million replacement. Due in March 1957, the job slipped repeatedly: the demolition permit came slowly, a steelworkers strike intervened, a fire broke out on the site, and limestone quarry, pipe, cement and mechanics' strikes followed. The four-story brick block with its limestone, aluminum and glass pavilion was completed in February 1958.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  8. 1997

    Actress Zoe Saldaña is a member of Newtown's class of 1997, on a long list of famous alumni

    Saldaña is one of dozens of notable Newtown graduates. Others include comedian Don Rickles, actor Carroll O'Connor, cosmetics maker Estée Lauder, Kiss member Gene Simmons, rock guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain, opera singer Risë Stevens, activist Grace Lee Boggs and New York Stock Exchange president Richard Grasso. Comedian Lenny Schultz also taught gym at the school.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2003

    June 24

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates Newtown High School after two earlier hearings

    The commission had first heard the school's case in November 1980 and again in July 1990. At the February 2003 hearing, three speakers supported it, representing the Historic Districts Council, the Department of Education and the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and no one spoke against it. Designation came on June 24, 2003, when the school had about 4,500 students and more than 200 teachers.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 11 buildings with stories in Elmhurst