‘Colored School No. 4’ in Chelsea moves closer to landmark status

For several decades in the 19th century, “Colored School No. 4” in Manhattan was a bustling center of activity for the city’s Black population, a sign of advancement for a community that regularly contended with systemic racism and violence at the hands of white New Yorkers.

Today the vacant three-story structure, built around 1850, sits forlorn on West 17th Street in Chelsea. In the empty front room on the street level, large flakes of paint have peeled off the ceiling and accumulated on the floor.

But that could soon change. The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission has nudged the building a step closer to landmark status, agreeing to schedule a public hearing on the question. The move is being celebrated by historic preservation groups even as some say far too few buildings marking the history of Black New York have received the honor, resulting in their eventual obliteration.

This building is not an architectural masterpiece. It's not going to go in any guides to great architecture of the world. But that's certainly not the only reason why a building should be considered worthy of preservation or an important part of our city.

Andrew Berman, president of Village Preservation

“New York has woefully too few extant sites that reflect the complex historical trajectory, milestones and breadth of the African American experience in our great city,” read a Change.org petition that has garnered close to 2,500 signatures. “Justice dictates that we preserve this rare surviving ‘colored schoolhouse’ in Manhattan, and honor the impressive lives that filled its rooms.”

These included students who, despite enduring the inequities of a segregated school system, went on to storied careers: violinist and composer Walter F. Craig; Susan Elizabeth Frazier, the first Black teacher in the city assigned to an integrated public school; and James H. Williams, the highly influential leader of the “Red Cap” porters at Grand Central Terminal. A teacher at the school, J. Imogen Howard, went on to become a manager of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Additionally, Principal Sarah J.S. Garnet was one of the first Black female principals in the city’s public school system, and also a prominent suffragist. In 1863, during the city’s notorious Draft Riots, she barricaded Black students inside when a white mob set upon the building. The riots, sparked by white men opposed to federal laws mandating their military service during the Civil War and directed at Black residents and institutions alike, marks one of the most violent episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.

Eric K. Washington, an independent historian who authored the petition and led the yearslong effort to obtain landmark status for the school building, said the school was historically significant “because it really represents the official, segregated public school system in New York that lasted most of the 19th century,” until segregation ended in 1894. The building eventually came under the Department of Sanitation before falling into disuse several years ago.

A 'rare' history

The Landmark Preservation Commission, or LPC, has not yet set the date for a public hearing. Washington said he was happy the commission was officially considering the building for landmark status and felt the chances for final approval were “very strong.”

“I don't anticipate there will be much opposition,” said Washington, author of “Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal.”

In 2021, members of Community Board 4 voted 43-0 to endorse landmark status for the building. A letter from CB 4 to the commission noted that “graduating from grammar school was an important milestone for African American children who were otherwise often pulled from school to work and help support their families.”

Numerous historical groups have also added their support to the cause.

“The history of the Former Colored School No. 4, located at 128 West 17th St., is rare,” wrote Elizabeth Goldstein, the president of the Municipal Art Society, in a letter last April to the landmark commission. “To have that history embodied in an extant building in good shape is fortuitous. This is an extraordinary opportunity to bring citywide recognition to the importance this school had in African American history and its tumultuous ups and downs as well as the very important people who were associated with the school and that history.”

The building is relatively inconspicuous, nestled between two taller structures, including one housing the Rubin Museum of Art’s Education Center.

“This building is not an architectural masterpiece,” said Andrew Berman, the president of the Village Preservation group. “It's not going to go in any guides to great architecture of the world. But that's certainly not the only reason why a building should be considered worthy of preservation or an important part of our city.”

The landmark commission's leadership has noted the significance of the site in the city's history and in meeting the agency’s equity goals.

The school is “Manhattan's only known surviving example of a racially segregated school from the period between the Civil War through the post-Reconstruction,” said Sarah Carroll, chair of the landmark commission, in an interview with Gothamist.

Carroll noted that the historical period “is less well represented by landmark designations” and that the commission was “committed to continuing to ensure that our designations tell the story of all New Yorkers” since establishing an Equity Framework in 2021, in the wake of the nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd.

She pointed to the recent landmarking of sites representing the history of Indigenous people and Chinese-Americans: the Aakawaxung Munahanung (Island Protected from the Wind) Archaeological Site on Staten Island and the Kimlau War Memorial in Chinatown. Both received landmark status in 2021.

“So I'm very proud of the work that we've done,” said Carroll.

'Dragged their feet'

However, others were openly critical of the commission and its commitment to equity, arguing that forward movement on the potential landmarking of the school was the exception rather than the rule.

“While we are pleased that the LPC has finally chosen to move ahead on this proposal, they have consistently dragged their feet on protecting endangered sites connected to African American history in our neighborhoods,” said Village Preservation in a Feb. 21 statement.

Berman praised the commission for landmarking 70 Fifth Ave., the former headquarters of the NAACP, in 2021.

“But it's really been a sprinkling at best, a small handful” of Black historical sites, he said. “We're not seeing the progress we would like to.”

He said his organization was pushing for landmark status for the West 13th Street home of Jacob Day, who in the 19th century was one of the city’s wealthiest Black businessmen and a civil rights advocate. Meanwhile, the group has fought the sale and potential demolition of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in the East Village, contending that it is historically significant: this is where Dr. David Kearny McDonogh, the country’s first Black ophthalmologist and the first formerly enslaved person to obtain a college degree, practiced.

“The Colored School and these other sites are really just the tip of the iceberg of important Black and African American history in our neighborhood that deserves to be recognized and preserved,” said Berman.

If the school building is ultimately landmarked and restored, Washington said he and others envisioned it as a future cultural space.

He said it was important to “acknowledge and commemorate the Black experience in New York,” a story that “goes back to the beginning” of the city’s founding, when it was a Dutch colony, on through the centuries – through crises as well as the blossoming of the Harlem Renaissance, to the present day.

“I mean, Blacks have been here,” Washington said.