St. Paul's School is a 500-room brick edifice in the Village of Garden City, New York, United States. As of 2010, the building is not currently used.[2]
St. Paul's was built by Cornelia Stewart, widow of Alexander Stewart, and dedicated in his honor. This building is of High Victorian Gothic design. The architect was William H. Harris. The cornerstone was laid on June 18, 1879, with attended by Cornelia Stewart, her brother Charles Clinch, Henry Hilton, and Abram Newkirk Littlejohn, the first Episcopal Bishop of Long Island. It took James L'Hommedieu four years to complete construction of this massive E-shaped building. It was crowned with a slate roof and a clock and bell tower. There were laboratories, classrooms, libraries, several dining halls, kitchens, a large reception parlor, permanent workspaces for staff, a beautiful gothic chapel, with seating for 400, dormitory space for 300 students, with spacious interior apartments on the top floors for teachers.[3]
It opened in 1883 as a military school for boys, owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. In 1884, the St. Paul's football team won the New York area championship. The school also had baseball and ice hockey teams. St. Paul's remained a military school for only 10 years, afterward becoming a college preparatory academy.
At the turn of the 20th century, headmaster Rev. Frederick Luther Gamage stated the school's mission to be to "develop manly, Christian character, a strong physique, and the power to think." During Father Gamage's tenure, a benefactor, George Bywater Cluett, an owner of the Cluett, Peabody and Company, a collar and shirt making firm in Troy, New York, provided funds for a gymnasium to be constructed as a memorial to Cluett's son, Alfonzo Rockwell Cluett, who had been a student of Headmaster Gamage, approximately class of 1896, and after graduating from Yale University in 1900, died the following Christmas Eve of typhoid fever.[4]
Approximately 1906, William Bradford Turner, a direct descendant of Massachuttes Bay Colony Governor William Bradford, enrolled at St. Paul's in the third form (i.e. ninth grade); Turner would later go on to posthumously win the Congressional Medal of Honor, being killed in World War I.[5]
In 1907, Headmaster Gamage left St. Paul's, and some of its prestigious students, like Turner, and donors, like Cluett, went with him to found Trinity-Pawling School upstate. However, the school continued to prosper.
After the World Series finished in 1917, the pennant winning teams, the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants, came to St. Paul's to play an exhibition baseball game to entertain the soldiers of the United States Army Rainbow Division, which was encamped nearby in Garden City. Participants in that game for the New York Giants included Manager John McGraw, and Jim Thorpe. The White Sox players included those soon to be infamous in the Black Sox Scandal.
The brother of United States President Donald Trump, Fred Trump, graduated from St. Paul's in 1956. Their father, Fred Trump Sr., donated money to improve the soccer field, which was temporarily renamed Trump Field.[6]
In 1970, a new gymnasium field house was built, and named for Father Nicholas Feringa, the former headmaster. At the opening, it was the largest indoor sports fieldhouse on Long Island, with four contiguous basketball courts. The New York Nets professional basketball team used it as their training facility, splitting the basketball complex with the students. Future Hall of Famer Rick Barry was on the Nets at that time, with the Nets using the same gym and the same locker rooms concurrently with the St. Paul's students.
In 1991, St. Paul's owner, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, entered bankruptcy, and being forced to sell its assets, St. Paul's shut down. The Village of Garden City negotiated a "friendly condemnation", and obtained the buildings and all 48 acres of land. The village has used the gymnasiums and athletic fields, but basic maintenance has been neglected.[7]
The AIA Architectural Guide to Nassau and Suffolk Counties describes the building as having "poly-chromatic voussoir arched windows, elaborate cast-iron balustrades, and Dorchester stone trim." The building was selected in 2003 by the Preservation League of New York State as one of its "Seven to Save" endangered properties.[8]
Saint Paul's featured prominently in the book published by then President's Donald Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough, in which she explains that both of President Trump's brothers, her own father Fred Trump Jr. and her uncle Robert Trump were alumni of Saint Paul's. The book goes on to describe pranks by Freddie Trump's friends including one by Homer Godwin.
Development and demolition
Main entrance to St. Paul's School.
In 1993, the building was sold to the Incorporated Village of Garden City. The residents of Garden City were unable to come up with a viable plan to use the school for a different purpose. The Mayor of Garden City appointed a committee to make recommend uses for the buildings which recommended that the property be redeveloped, and leased for 99 years to a private senior assisted living company. The proposal was controversial because there was no municipal use of the buildings and because the proposal increased the building footprint and decreased green space, as well as lack of significant tax revenues.
In 1995, Tishman Speyer Properties conducted a preliminary inspection and evaluation on the potential to adapt the St. Paul's buildings as the new Garden City High School. Tishman Speyer submitted four preliminary designs to the Garden City Board of Education for their consideration. The proposal was supported by many of the younger families; however, the Eastern Property Owners Association vigorously lobbied the Board of Education not to consider it out of fear it would cost more, and the Board of Education eventually took it off the table. Ironically, the alternative cost of renovating the Garden City Middle and High School subsequently proved to be even more.
In 2004, the Village Board of the Incorporated Village of Garden City voted to dedicate St. Paul's School's 48 acre (194,000 m2) site as parkland, with then Mayor Barbara Miller voting twice to break the tie of 4 board members in favor and 4 members opposed, on December 16. Removal of its designation as parkland would require the approval of the New York State Legislature.
In 2008, a Village-wide opinion poll was held, and the results were: Approve Demolition: 2,272 votes (45.4%); Approve Mothballing of Main Building: 1,857 votes (37.1%); Approve of the Avalon Bay proposal: 873 votes (17.5%). The total Voter Turnout was 5,002.
In 2014, an annex known as Ellis Hall, built in 1969 to provide additional school space, was demolished, although preservation plans included saving the annex.[2]
Related Research Articles
Lawrence Sheriff School (LSS) is a boys' grammar school in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan founder of Rugby School. The school was founded in 1878, in order to continue Sheriff's original bequest for a free grammar school for the boys of Rugby and surrounding villages, which had originally been fulfilled by Rugby School, until the latter moved to become a fee-paying public school in the 19th century. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff'. The school has historically run in partnership with Rugby High School for Girls, a nearby grammar school.
Groton School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts. It is affiliated with the Episcopal tradition.
Avon Old Farms School is a boarding school for boys located in Avon, Connecticut, United States. Theodate Pope Riddle, one of America's first female architects, founded the school in 1927.
Armour Square is a Chicago neighborhood on the city's South Side, as well as a larger, officially defined community area, which also includes Chinatown and the CHA Wentworth Gardens housing project. Armour Square is bordered by Bridgeport to the west, Pilsen to the northwest, Douglas and Grand Boulevard to the east and southeast, and with the Near South Side bordering the area to the north, and Fuller Park bordering its southernmost boundary, along Pershing Road.
The Manlius Pebble Hill School (MPH) is a secular, coeducational, independent, pre-K through 12 school in DeWitt, New York. The school is the result of a merger in 1970 between The Manlius School, founded in 1869, and the Pebble Hill School, established in 1926. MPH marked its 150th anniversary in 2019. MPH is accredited by the New York State Association of Independent Schools, of which it is a founding member, and is also a member of the National Association of Independent Schools.
Jerry I. Speyer is an American real estate developer. He is one of two founding partners of the New York real estate company Tishman Speyer, which controls Rockefeller Center. Speyer was featured in the Forbes 400 list in 2021.
St. Mark's Episcopal School is a private primary and secondary school located in the Cambridge Place development and in West University Place, Texas, in Greater Houston. St. Mark's serves preschool through Grade 8. The school is located just four miles from the Texas Medical Center and minutes south of the Galleria. St. Mark's is a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest and the Southwest Association of Episcopal Schools. The current headmaster of the school is Garhett Wagers.
Saint James School is an independent boarding and day school in the U.S. state of Maryland. Founded in 1842 as the College and Grammar School of St. James's, the school is a coeducational college preparatory school and the oldest Episcopal boarding school in the United States founded as a boarding school proper.
Trinity-Pawling School is an independent, college-preparatory boarding school for boys from 7th to 12th grade in Pawling, New York, United States. The school, located on a 230-acre campus in southern Dutchess County, is located 60 miles north of New York City.
Washington Square Village (WSV) is an apartment complex in a superblock in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. WSV was developed by Paul Tishman and Morton S. Wolf. To design the housing complex, the developer selected architects S. J. Kessler and Sons, with Paul Lester Weiner as consultant for site planning and design; landscape architects were Sasaki, Walker & Associates.
Catholic Central School was a private, centrally located pre-K-12 regional Catholic school in Latham, New York, within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. It was formed in 2022 with the merger of Saint Ambrose elementary school in Latham with Catholic Central High School in Troy, New York. The new school is located on the grounds of the former Saint Ambrose School. The school's Troy property was put up for sale in March 2022, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
South Kent School, a private all-boys boarding school in South Kent, Connecticut, United States, is located on a 650-acre (2.6 km2) campus in western Litchfield County. It is sited on Spooner Hill east of Bull's Bridge, overlooking the former Housatonic Valley rail-line, Hatch Pond, and the 'whistle-stop' South Kent station, and is itself overlooked by Bull Mountain.
Garden City is a village located in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 23,272 at the time of the 2020 census.
Webster Groves High School is a public secondary school in Webster Groves, Missouri, United States. It is located at 100 Selma Ave, Webster Groves, MO. The school is part of the Webster Groves School District and its current principal is Matt Irvin.
William Bradford Turner was a United States Army officer who received the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in World War I.
St. Paul's Episcopal Day School is a private primary school in Kansas City, Missouri. Established in 1963, the school serves students in toddler through eighth grade.
Charles Francis Dolan is an American billionaire businessman, best known as founder of Cablevision and HBO. Today, Dolan controls Madison Square Garden Sports, MSG Networks, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Madison Square Garden, Sphere, Radio City Music Hall, BBC America and AMC Networks. As of October 2021, his net worth was estimated at US$5.6 billion.
All Saints' Episcopal College was originally an Episcopal college for women in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It began accepting male boarding students as All Saints' Episcopal School in 1971. It was founded in 1908 and it ceased operating as a traditional school in 2006. Currently, All Saints' provides training to Americorps students in a residential setting.
The Spiral, also known as 66 Hudson Boulevard, is a 66-floor, 1,031-foot (314 m) skyscraper with 2.85 million square feet (265,000 m2), on 34th Street between Hudson Boulevard and Tenth Avenue in Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York City. It was developed by Tishman Speyer, constructed by Turner Construction, and opened in 2023.
William Bradford Turner Hastings was suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut from his election in 1981 until his retirement in 1986.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
