Modern Times School, also known as District 12 School and Brentwood School, is a historic

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

building located at Brentwood in

Suffolk County, New York Suffolk County () is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of New York. It is mainly located on the eastern end of Long Island, but also includes several smaller islands. According to the 2020 United States census, the county's populatio ...

History

The school building was built in 1857 by the utopian community of Modern Times and was originally a small, one story, frame octagonal building sheathed in

board and batten A batten is most commonly a strip of solid material, historically wood but can also be of plastic, metal, or fiberglass. Battens are variously used in construction, sailing, and other fields. In the lighting industry, battens refer to linea ...

siding and surmounted by a hipped roof with octagonal

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

. It featured a rectangular projecting entrance

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

surmounted by a gable roof. It has been moved twice, altered, and suffered significant deterioration. It was converted for residential use in 1907 to make room for a larger schoolhouse and was moved to its present site in 1989. ''See also:'' The building is one of the few surviving structures of the village of Modern Times, which was founded by reformers

Josiah Warren Josiah Warren (; 1798–1874) was an American utopian socialist, American individualist anarchist, individualist philosopher, polymath, social reformer, inventor, musician, printer and author. He is regarded by anarchist historians like James ...

and

Stephen Pearl Andrews Stephen Pearl Andrews (March 22, 1812 – May 21, 1886) was an American libertarian socialist, individualist anarchist, linguist, political philosopher, outspoken Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist and author of several books on the ...

as an experimental community in the nineteenth century. The village based itself on individual freedom and was known for its lack of jail, police, judge or money. The village lasted 13 years before renaming itself "Brentwood" to rid itself of bad connotations. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1994. In 2016, the Brentwood Historical Society funded its renovation and preservation.

References

External links

Long Island Ruins - Around Brentwood Today
School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) School buildings completed in 1857 Octagonal school buildings in the United States Buildings and structures in Suffolk County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York 1857 establishments in New York (state) {{SuffolkCountyNY-NRHP-stub