New York City's Historic Schools - A History and Guide to Rehabilitation

This document provides a history and a guide to the rehabilitation of New York City Public School Buildings constructed from the mid-nineteenth up to the mid-twentieth century. It includes a compilation of narratives on the architectural eras of these school buildings, as well as their style and plan typologies. The detailed Technical Guideline provides a practical overview to historic buildings' structure, materials and systems, as well as standards and strategies for their rehabilitation. The Guide is brought to life through case studies of actual renovation projects. The technical resource and individual project examples highlight the difficulties of solving water penetration and structural problems in these historic schools. The investigations and solutions, developed by both SCA A&E In-house staff and our design consultants, highlight common problems found in historic school buildings, and will serve to guide future rehabilitation projects.

New York City's Historic Schools - A History and Guide to Rehabilitation 
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Along with this guide, the following list of "Sister Schools" groups identical or similar schools with a brief description and approximate year(s) when that building type was built. When scoping a renovation project, we recommend reviewing projects undertaken at the "sisters" to that building, as oftentimes the vulnerable and/or damaged aspects are common to all. These aspects should be investigated, even where there are no currently noted issues. Keep in mind too, that some earlier repair campaigns may have been unsuccessful and may require subsequent work. If you happen to work on a school that you think should be added to the Sister Schools list, please notify the CADD unit.

Sister School List