Landmarks Preservation Commission December 21, 1982, Designation List 162 LP-1241 HIGH SCHOOL OF THE PERFORMING ARTS, 120 West 46th Street, Borough of Manhattan. Built 1893-94; architect, C.B.J. Snyder. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan, Tax Map Block 998, Lot 41. On May 19, 1981, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the High School of the Performing Arts and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 7). The hear ing had been duly advertised in accordance with provisions of law. Three ~he witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to des:Ugnation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS The High School of the Performing Arts, formerly Public School 67, is a handsome Romanesque Revival style building originally built to serve a large residential com munity on the west side of Manhattan. The school is the first known to have been designed by C.B.J. Snyder, Superintendent of School Buildings to the Board of Educa tion for thirty years. Snyder's tenure coincided with a period of enormous popula tion growth in New York, and he designed a multitude of new schools, many of which are major architectural monuments in their neighborhoods. As the area around Times Square changed from residential to commercial, P.S. 67 fell into disuse. After World War II, however, it was revived and adapted for use by the new High School of the Performing Arts, an innovative high school which com bined the usual academic curriculum with professional training in dance, theater, and music. Unique in the country at the time of its founding, the school became tremendously successful, and its graduates include many of the most famous performing artists in the country. New York Public Schools and C.B.J. Snyder From the beginning of massive immigration to the city in the 1880s until the end of the 1930s, New York experienced a population growth that eventually made it a metropolis of close to eight million people. That growth was matched by an unparal~ leled construction boom and during those decades much of the present city was built. Many of the city's new residents were children, and meeting their educational needs with new school buildings was a major task undertaken by the city government during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century . According to a 1905 architectural periodical: The magnitude of the undertaking and the reality of the need for these new school-houses is shown by the fact that, even after several years of active building, there are at this time seventy-seven school-houses in various stages of complete ness now in charge of the architect to the Department of Educa tion, while contracts for twenty-four more will shortly be made.l The Board of Education built all the new schools to the designs of the Superin tend~nt of School Buildings. At first, the Board was responsible only for Manhattan and those parts of the Bronx which constituted the 19th century city; after the

-2- consolidation of the five boroughs into the City of Greater New York in 1898, how ever, its authority was extended over the entire area. From 1884 to 1891, Super intendent George W. Debevoise designed handsome school buildings, many, such as Public School 11 in the Bronx (a designated New York City Landmark), in the then popular Romanesque Revival style. His output, however, was later overshadowed by the thirty years' worth of schools designed by his successor, C.B.J. Snyder. The writer of 1905 qud>.ted above wrote of Snyder: Possibly it was not the best, probably it was not the most eco nomical, certainly it was not the most expeditious way to have all the school-houses the city stood in such sore need of de signed and built by the official architect to the Department of Education. Bu~ since that method had to be followed, it is a matter of wonderful good fortune that the official architect chanced to be such a man as is M

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