Harlem School of the Arts

645 St Nicholas Avenue | also 641 St Nicholas Avenue | Hamilton Heights | built 1977

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.

1964
Soprano Dorothy Maynor founds the Harlem School of the Arts
Concert soprano Dorothy Maynor started the school in 1964 in the basement of St. James Presbyterian Church, at a time when the neighborhood faced severe blight and poverty and had few cultural resources. It grew into a school teaching music, theater, visual arts and dance to young people aged 2 to 18.
Source: Wikipedia
1979
The school moves into Ulrich Franzen's new building
Ground was broken in 1975, and in 1979 the school moved into a 37,000-square-foot building at 645 St. Nicholas Avenue designed by architect Ulrich Franzen. More than 85 percent of its students are Black or Latino; alumni include actors Giancarlo Esposito and Caleb McLaughlin.
Source: Wikipedia
2013
A gift from Herb Alpert renames the school's building in his honor
Musician and philanthropist Herb Alpert makes a major gift to the Harlem School of the Arts, and its Ulrich Franzen-designed home on St. Nicholas Avenue is renamed the Herb Alpert Center. In 2019 the school announces a $9.5 million overhaul called the Renaissance Project, and a further gift from the Herb Alpert Foundation the next year lets the Walters-Storyk Design Group carry out the work. The gifts sustain a school that has taught Harlem children music, theater, and dance since the 1960s.
Source: Wikipedia

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