Old P.S. 64 on the L.E.S. — Immigrant School Innovator and Latinx Culture Leader

 This distinguished structure and its distinctive plan and siting in the middle of a crowded neighborhood of tenement buildings helped create a strong statement about the importance of education and the importance of the building itself in the crowded immigrant neighborhood. P.S. 64 was designed while Snyder was at his creative and inventive peak, and is an unusually intact example of a school building from this early period.” Edgar Yipsel “Yip” Harburg, who wrote The Wizard of Oz lyrics, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the director of All About Eve and The Barefoot Contessa, and Sam Levene, who played Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, all graduated from this school.

605 East 9th Street/350 East 10th Street was built as Public School 64 between 1904 and 1905. It was designed by the Board of Education’s chief architect Charles B.J. Snyder, and is a mid-block H-plan building. PS 64 is a rare Snyder school in that it uses the French Renaissance Revival style and the building’s design was not repeated for any other school location, as was often the case with school designs. A designated New York City Landmark, the five-story building is described in its designation report as featuring “keyed surrounds, slate-covered mansard roof, terra-cotta moldings, and keystones, contrasting brick and stone materials, and pediments filled with fruit and foliage [that] resulted in a visually prominent school building."