345 East 15th Street was home to Stuyvesant High School for 85 years. As people walk through the halls of our current building, they can see subtle remnants of Stuyvesant’s past address. Many are stored in the small glass boxes built into the walls, holding various, often ancient artifacts. One of these relics is a cue ball donated by Julian’s, a popular hang-out spot in Old Stuy’s neighborhood.
The old building was designed much differently than many of the modern schools of today. “There was the grand entryway with its carved stonework and gargoyles, marble torches in the lobby, oak classroom doors and chair-desks with inkwells,” Michael Rosenbluth (‘70) said.
“The old building was amazing,” writer Lauren Davis (‘75) said. “The spiral staircase, the cavernous auditorium, the antiquated science labs […] We did amazing science in outdated labs.”
The old building was only five stories high, but without escalators, it was still a challenge to get to class on time. About the same number of students populated each grade, too, making it more crowded than the new building.
But, said computer science coordinator Mike Zamansky (‘84), “Because there were wide hallways and tall ceilings, it seemed less crowded than here.” What may have helped control the crowds of students were the staircases. “People did follow the up and down staircases,” Zamansky said. “Not like here.”
Some of the most memorable features of the old building were the auditorium, computer room and gym. The auditorium balcony was a popular hangout spot for Stuy students. “What I liked best about the old building was the auditorium and the warmth and coziness of the place,” Daniel Zica (‘93) said.
The computer room was created when General Electric donated the first computer to Stuyvesant. “[The computer] took up a room the size of a normal kid’s bedroom,” Davis said.
In “Shards,” Davis’s memoir-in-progress, she said, “Our gym used to be a small storage room. It sports a tile-over-concrete floor, a low wavy ceiling, and four pillars in the center to obstruct the flow of movement and cause injury. The only redeeming feature is its access to the track. The boys’ track, hovering around the second story rim of the boys’ gym. The girls are forbidden to use it.”
Up until 1969, Stuyvesant was an all-boys school. “The fact that it was an all-boys school led to a rather relaxed social atmosphere,” Robert McLoughlin (‘69) said. “No intrigues about who was dating who and all the social complications and fun of being in a co-ed school.”
Following a lawsuit won by a young woman, Stuyvesant became a coeducational high school, welcoming 14 girls in 1969. “I was the third or fourth co-ed graduating class. We were aliens at Stuy,” Davis said. There was only one girls’ bathroom, not including the girls’ gym locker room, and both were converted from boys’ bathrooms.
Other than the lack of gender incorporation, “The atmosphere was very integrated,” Davis said. “In the 70s, we were a true melting pot community. There was a bond between the students at Stuy caused by our need to flee our neighborhood schools where smart kids were regular targets of violence. Stuy was a haven, where it was safe to be smart. It brought us together.”
The neighborhood around the old building was very different from Tribeca. Stuyvesant, quite appropriately, used to border Stuyvesant Town. “The neighborhood was a nifty mix of medium-rise residential buildings, lots of commercial activity with mom ‘n’ pop stores, junk-stores, small cafes,” Rosenbluth said.
Stuyvesant was then located a few blocks from Union Square, which was unlike the Union Square of today. “It was sketchy, filled with junkies and other sleazy characters,” Rosenbluth said. “Even though I stayed away, it was not unusual to hear about guys wandering the East Village after school or going to McSorley’s Ale House. The drinking age was, after all, 18.”
West of Stuy was a park, which, like Battery Park, was a popular location for students to “go and hangout and play Frisbee,” Zamansky said. The park was one of many spots students were invited to socialize.
In the current building, students are often ushered outside once school ends. Due to the many forbidden hangout spots in the building, students can often be found in the hallways outside classes. “In the old building we didn’t have any people making noise in hallways,” Zamansky said. “Instead you would go to the cafeteria or the auditorium balcony to hangout.”
There are several Stuyvesant faculty who have attended Stuyvesant as students and returned as teachers, such as Zamansky and English teacher Annie Thoms (‘93). Thoms overlapped between the two buildings, spending three years on 15th Street and one on Chambers.
In the 1980s, the need for a new building was becoming more and more pressing. The old building outlived many levels of sidewalk, “the cornerstone, bearing the foundation date of 1904, is only half-visible due to the buildup of various levels of sidewalk,” McLoughlin said.
Thoms made the transition to the new building in her senior year. “We had to sort of break this building in. We had to start thinking about how we were going to use this space differently from the old building,” she said. The theater had not opened until February of that year, and students were not yet permitted out to lunch. “There were definitely some kinks that needed to be worked out,” Thoms said.
Zica was another alumnus whoalso attended Stuyvesant at both buildings. “I like some of the amenities the new building provides.The gyms are much nicer. The pool is great. But overall I still prefer the old building’s warmth and nostalgia. The new building just seems somewhat colder to me,” he said.
Construction began on the new building in 1989. The new 10ten-floor building has six gyms, a swimming pool, 450 computers and 65 classrooms with a color television in each.
Though the new building couldn’t be more different than the old, it has kept a small piece of the old building within its walls. The Museum room, room 225, a nearly exact replica of the old classrooms on 15th Street, is full of old wood desks and chairs taken from the old building. It is dedicated to former faculty member Dr. Stephan Edward Stefanacci, and the desks are engraved with the names of couples and jokes from years passed, like “Mike and Diane.”
The rooms walls are also decorated with Stuy history (stamps of James Cagney, who is a Stuy alum, maps of Old New York)
As the old building’s years as the home of Stuyvesant came to a close, its antiquated interior gave off the most character. “The old and new Stuy have a couple of sure things in common,” said Rosenbluth said. “Their addresses are both ‘345’ and they’ve each housed brilliance.”
