"After employment in the firms of McKim, Mead & White, Maynicke & Franke, and George Edward Harding & Gooch, he established his own practice around 1906 and specialized in the design of commercial and institutional buildings. He was elected president of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1923. Gompert was hired in February 1923 by the New York City Board of Education as an expert to assist in the reorganization of the Bureau of Construction and Maintenance and to facilitate the construction of public schools; his initial six-month contract gave him the 'powers and duties of Superintendent of School Buildings.'
"According to The New York Times, Gompert had 'much experience in the directing of large building construction enterprises.' After a six-month extension of his contract, Gompert was appointed in January 1924 to the position of Architect and Superintendent of School Buildings for the Board of Education, and became the third-highest paid official in the administration of Mayor John Francis Hylan.
"Gompert was the first successor to the noted Charles B.J. Snyder, Superintendent of School Buildings from 1891 until January 1, 1923, who had been responsible for the vast school construction program following the consolidation of New York City in 1898, and had been 'virtually forced out of the post under pressure by. . . Mayor Hylan.'
"To alleviate the serious overcrowding in the schools caused by immigration after World War I, New York City undertook another extensive program of school construction in the mid-1920s. Gompert was forced to contend with a significant shortage of bricklayers in the citywide building industry, as well as a lack of interest on the part of major construction firms in bidding on public school construction projects. He attempted to bring about economy and change in the process of school construction, including standardizing design and construction, employing general contracts instead of individual construction contracts, and instituting double shifts to shorten construction time. In 1925, however, charges began to surface, first by a mayoral candidate, that many of the schools constructed under Gompert were defective. By the end of 1927, three separate investigations were underway and Gompert resigned in December. Former Mayor Hylan responded to critics that Gompert was under attack because he had 'built too many schools to suit those that do not want the children educated.'
"The Board of Education's Joint Committee of Architects and Engineers issued its report in 1928 and called Gompert's schools 'in general honest, safe, efficient and appropriate to the purpose.'
"In his nearly five years as school architect,Gompert was credited with overseeing the design and construction of some 170 new schools and additions, including The High School of Music & Art (in 1924), DeWitt Clinton High School and Theodore Roosevelt High School (1929), the Bronx; James Madison High School (1926), Brooklyn; and Jamaica High School (1927) and Far Rockaway High School (1929), Queens, in austere versions of such contemporary institutional styles as Collegiate Gothic, Georgian, and Spanish Colonial. The towered Public School 101 (1929), Forest Hills Gardens, has been considered Gompert's most stylistically interesting design."
Albert Kahn was an American industrial architect. He was accredited as being an architect of Detroit and also designed industrial plant complexes such as the Ford River Rouge automobile complex. He designed the construction of Detroit skyscrapers and office buildings as well as mansions in the city suburbs. He led an organization of hundreds of architect associates and in 1937, designed 19% of all architect-designed industrial factories in the United States. Under a unique contract in 1929, Kahn established a design and training office in Moscow, sending twenty-five staff there to train Soviet architects and engineers, and to design hundreds of industrial buildings under their first five-year plan. They trained more than 4,000 architects and engineers using Kahn's concepts. In 1943, the Franklin Institute posthumously awarded Kahn the Frank P. Brown Medal.
Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Academy, a private institution of higher learning named for the scholar Desiderius Erasmus, known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian. The school was the first secondary school chartered by the New York State Regents. The clapboard-sided, Georgian-Federal-style building, constructed on land donated by the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church, was turned over to the public school system in 1896.
William Edmond Lescaze, was a Swiss-born American architect, city planner and industrial designer. He is ranked among the pioneers of modernism in American architecture.
The BMT Nassau Street Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway system in Manhattan. At its northern end, the line is a westward continuation of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn after the Jamaica Line crosses the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan. The Nassau Street Line continues south to a junction with the BMT Broadway Line just before the Montague Street Tunnel, after which the line reenters Brooklyn. Although the tracks merge into the Broadway Line south of Broad Street, there has been no regular service south of the Broad Street station since June 25, 2010. While the line is officially recognized as the Nassau Street Line, it only serves one station on Nassau Street: Fulton Street.
The Broad Street station is a station on the BMT Nassau Street Line of the New York City Subway at the intersection of Broad and Wall Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan. It serves as the southern terminal for J trains at all times and for Z trains during rush hours in the peak direction.
Jamaica High School was a four-year public high school in Jamaica, Queens, New York. It was operated by the New York City Department of Education.
The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art", was a public specialized high school located at 443-465 West 135th Street in the borough of Manhattan, New York, from 1936 until 1984. In 1961, Music & Art and the High School of Performing Arts were formed into a two-campus high school. The schools fully merged in 1984 into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & the Arts.
Charles B. J. Snyder was an American architect, architectural engineer, and mechanical engineer in the field of urban school building design and construction. He is widely recognized for his leadership, innovation, and transformation of school building construction process, design, and quality during his tenure as Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education between 1891 and 1923.
The Superintendent of Schools Buildings was a position assigned by the School Building Commission of the New York City Board of Education.
Starrett & van Vleck was an American architectural firm based in New York City which specialized in the design of department stores, primarily in the early 20th century. It was active from 1908 until at least the late 1950s.
William Butts Ittner was an architect in St. Louis, Missouri. He designed over 430 school buildings in Missouri and other areas, was president of the St. Louis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects from 1893 to 1895, was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Missouri in 1930, served as president of the Architectural League of America during 1903–04, and at the time of his death was president of the St. Louis Plaza Commission, a fellow and life member of the American Institute of Architects, and a thirty-third degree Mason. He was described as the most influential man in school architecture in the United States and has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. He was appointed St. Louis School Board commissioner in 1897 and is said to have designed open buildings that featured "natural lighting, inviting exteriors, and classrooms tailored to specific needs." In 1936, Ittner died. His legacy is survived by the William B. Ittner, Inc. and Ittner & Bowersox, Inc. architecture firms in St. Louis.
Tachau and Vought was an American architectural firm active in the mid-twentieth-century New York City that specialized in mental hygiene hospitals. It was established in 1919 as the successor to the architectural firm of Pilcher and Tachau by William G. Tachau and Vought. By 1946, Vought had left. Eliot Butler Willauer was a principal from around 1945 until 1946. The firm moved from 109 Lexington Avenue to 102 East 30th Street around 1923.
William Gabriel Tachau, AIA,, was an American architect active in early- to mid-twentieth-century New York City. With Lewis Pilcher, he was a partner in the architectural firm of Pitcher & Tachau from 1904 to 1919 when he established the firm of Tachau & Vought. Both firms from 1918 onward specialized in mental hygiene hospitals. The firm moved from 109 Lexington Avenue to 102 East 30th Street around 1923 and remained at that address and that name even after Vought left.
Girls' High School was a public high school in Brooklyn, New York. It was located in a historically and architecturally notable building located at 475 Nostrand Avenue in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. It was built in 1886.
The Staten Island Tunnel is an abandoned, incomplete railway/subway tunnel in New York City. It was intended to connect railways on Staten Island to the BMT Fourth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway, in Brooklyn, via a new crossing under the Narrows. Planned to extend 10,400 feet (3,200 m), the tunnel would have been among the world's longest at the time of its planning, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Hewitt & Emerson was an architectural firm based in Peoria, Illinois. It was founded in 1909 as the partnership of architects Herbert E. Hewitt and Frank N. Emerson. After 1927 it was known successively as Hewitt, Emerson & Gregg; Emerson, Gregg & Briggs and Gregg & Briggs. It was active until at least the 1960s.
Dan Everett Waid (1864–1939) was a prominent 20th century architect operating primarily in Illinois and New York. As chief architect for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, he and his partner designed the Home Office Building at 11 Madison Avenue along with dozens of other commercial, religious, residential and academic structures. He was appointed architect for the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. He was also President of the American Institute of Architects (1924–1926).
The New York City Board of Transportation or the Board of Transportation of the City of New York was a city transit commission and operator in New York City, consisting of three members appointed by the mayor. It was created in 1924 to control city-owned and operated public transportation service within the New York City Transit System. The agency oversaw the construction and operation of the municipal Independent Subway System (IND), which was constructed shortly after the Board was chartered. The BOT later presided over the major transfers of public transit from private control to municipal control that took place in the 1940s, including the unification of the New York City Subway in 1940. In 1953, the Board was dissolved and replaced by the state-operated New York City Transit Authority, now part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
William McAndrew Jr. was an American educator and editor who served as Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools in the 1920s. McAndrew was, for a time, one of the best-known educators in the United States.
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