(Part One, which covered Schools One through Eight, is here.)
So we were working our way through “The Public Schools of Albany, N.Y.,” a souvenir volume from 1894. For reasons known only to the compilers, a few of the schools that existed at the time are entirely skipped over, including School No. 9, whose building at 333 Sheridan Avenue still stands today.
School No. 10, only four years old when this guide was compiled, is pictured here. It stood at the corner of Central Avenue and Ferry Street, which we can now take for N. Lake. Another work of Fuller & Wheeler, it’s one of the handful of buildings still serving its original purpose as a school, now home to Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls.
School No. 11 was another Ogden & Wright work, at 409 Madison Avenue. Dating to 1873, it still stands today as a condominium. It was ventilated by gravity, which is about the same as being ventilated by luck.
School No. 12 was recently converted into lovely apartments, but it wasn’t the School No. 12 shown here. This older structure, built by Wollett & Ogden in 1858, had been replaced by 1922. This is itself quite lovely.
We previously noted that in 1922, there was no School No. 13, and put it down to superstition. But it turns out there once was a School No. 13, another quite nice edifice that dated to 1799 at the corner of Broadway and Lawrence Street. The guide notes that it was originally a state arsenal, remodeled into a school building in 1859, which seems like the oldest building in the inventory in 1894.
School No. 14, 70 Trinity Place, was a bit different from School No. 14, 69 Trinity Place. The odd-numbered School 14, of course, still stands as the Schuyler Apartments. Was 70 Trinity directly across the street? This was the work of William Ellis (remodeled by A. Fleischman) in 1861. (Walter Dickson, who built School No. 3 in 1887, served an apprenticeship in the practice of Ellis.)
School No. 15, another work by Ogden and Wright, was built in 1871 at the corner of Herkimer and Franklin streets, deep in The Pastures. In 1960, it was to be abandoned for school purposes, replaced by the new school on South Pearl that is now Giffen Memorial Elementary. At the time, it was planned to house the Albany County Welfare Department. It survived until it was destroyed by fire in 1979, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
In 1922, there was a School No. 16, at 41 N. Allen St., which is still a school today. Given there was a 15 and a 17 in 1894, it stands to reason there was a School 16 then, too. But this guide makes no mention of it.
School 17, however, it mentions. Built in 1878 by Charles B. Nichols, it still stands today at Second Avenue and Stephen Street, sadly neglected.
18 and 19? Also not mentioned. Here’s School No. 20, built in 1880 at the corner of North Pearl and North Second Streets. At some point it was replaced by a newer structure that still stands in use as a school, the North Albany Academy.
School No. 21 at 666 Clinton Avenue dated to 1875, the work of architect Frederick W. Brown. Imposing but plain, today it is merely a vacant lot.
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