QUITE a few years have passed since I strode Van Duzer Street and St. Paul’s Avenue in Stapleton. Of late I have been revisiting locales where I have not been lately, and I did just that amid a heatwave in July 2024. I am a fan of clock towers, and the old PS 15 at St. Paul’s Avenue and Grant Street fills the requirement nicely. The building is still run by NYC Department of Education as an office of maintenance and operations. Originally called the Middletown Twp. District School #1, it was completed in 1897 by architect and Staten Island resident Edward (né Ebenezer) Alfred Sargent (1842-1914), who designed many of the eclectic homes found along St. Mark’s Place in St. George. Sargent was also a noted painter. (Tragically a Sargent masterpiece in Westerleigh was demolished in 2008).
I last walked here in 2009, though I brought a tour through in 2014. At that time, PS 15 was much more visible, but quite a bit of vegetation has popped up to hide things somewhat, so forgive the partiality of the image.
From the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report:
Faced in rough-textured burnt red brick with terra-cotta and stone bandcourses and trim, Public School 15 is distinguished by an intricate surround of brick and terra cotta at the main entrance facing St. Paul’s Avenue, chamfered pavilions on the front and sides, and Queen Anne style windows. Public School 15 was built with a prominent clock tower placed on the Grant Street side of the building. In 1916 it was named the Daniel D. Tompkins School, after the community’s founder and most prominent resident. The building is currently the Staten Island Area Office, Office of Building Services, Division of School Facilities, New York City Board of Education. It remains one of Staten Island’s most distinctive late-nineteenth-century public structures.
Currently, the building serves as P.S. 65, The Academy of Innovative Learning.
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9/9/24