P.S. 42 Benjamin Altman School
71 Hester Street | also 44 Orchard Street | Chinatown | built 1900
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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.
- 1898
C.B.J. Snyder designs P.S. 42 on Hester Street with 42 classrooms for 1,890 pupils
School architect C.B.J. Snyder completed Public School 42 in 1898, facing Hester Street between Orchard and Ludlow. The building began with 42 classrooms and seats for 1,890 children, about 45 to a room. Its toilets stayed outside the building until the 1940s, and the school kept burning coal until the 1990s.
Source: Forgotten New York
- 1916
P.S. 42 is named for department store founder Benjamin Altman
P.S. 42 took Benjamin Altman's name in 1916. Altman had opened the B. Altman dry goods store at Sixth Avenue and West 19th Street in 1877, after starting out in a first business on nearby Attorney Street. The store moved to Fifth Avenue and East 34th Street in 1902 and shut for good in 1989.
Source: Forgotten New York
- 1960
The city remodels P.S. 42 and covers much of C.B.J. Snyder's original detail
P.S. 42 at 71 Hester Street was designed by the prolific school architect Charles B. J. Snyder. A remodeling in the 1960s covered up much of the building's original detailing. It also left uneven ceiling heights and narrow hallways, and the school placed its pre-K and kindergarten classes in the wing that suits smaller children.
Source: insideschools.org
- 2013
InsideSchools finds P.S. 42 a multigenerational school where a third of students are recent arrivals from China
A 2013 InsideSchools visit found P.S. 42, which sits between Chinatown and the Lower East Side, with at least one teacher in every grade who had been a student there. About a third of pupils were recent arrivals from China who spoke Mandarin at home. The former principal, who came in the 1990s, recalled that back then most Chinese English learners had spoken Cantonese, and that the Spanish-speaking population had dropped significantly.
Source: insideschools.org
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