- City:
- New York, New York City, NY
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Schools
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
- Started:
- 1935
- Completed:
- 1937
- Designer:
- Walter G. Martin
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts, located on West 129th Street in Manhattan, was originally built as the Manhattanville Junior High School during the 1930s. Construction benefited from federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds as part of PWA Docket No. NY 8000.
PWA documents state that the four-story school measures 300 ft. by 200 ft. and is 60 feet tall. Ground was broken May 10, 1935; work was completed September 1, 1937; and the school was occupied that month.
The 56-room school featured the following classrooms: art weaving; woodworking; novelty; sheet metal shops; office practice; science; drawing; sewing; cooking; geography; and typewriting. It also featured a model apartment.
Construction cost was $1,094,840.
Source notes
National Archives Record Group 135-SAR: Prints: Photographs rejected for use in the Photographic Report to the President: “Survey of the Architecture of Completed Projects of the PWA, 1939”; Box 14: New York State; Folder 1: Schools.Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on July 30, 2014.
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