The New York School of Applied Design for Women, established in 1892, was an early design school for women in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The New York School of Applied Design building was built in 1908 and is now a landmarked building. The school became the New York Phoenix School of Design in 1944 when it merged with the Phoenix Art Institute, and in 1974, it merged with the Pratt Institute to form the Pratt-New York Phoenix School of Design.

History

Early years

The school, originally located at 200 West 23rd Street, was established in 1892. The founder and driving force of the school, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins, was involved in the academic program, fund-raising among wealthy individuals, management, and administration. Unique at its time for providing advanced education to working class women, its purpose was that "of affording to women inspiration which may enable them to earn a livelihood by the employment of their taste and manual dexterity in the application of ornamental design to manufacture and the arts." The school provided courses in illustration, book cover design, interior design, wallpaper and textile design, architecture, and a wide range of other art and design courses. The school, with an extensive art library, taught historic art and design classes for the students first two years at the school. It employed Henry L. Parkhurst of

Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...

to teach book cover design,

Paul de Longpré Paul de Longpré (1855–1911), was a French people, French painter of flowers, who worked mainly in the United States. Works De Longpré painted only perfect specimens of flowers. With a delicacy of touch and feeling for color he united sci ...

taught watercolor flower painting, and

Daniel Carter Beard Daniel Carter "Uncle Dan" Beard (June 21, 1850 – June 11, 1941) was an American illustrator, author, youth leader, Georgist and social reformer who founded the Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905, which Beard later merged with the Boy Scouts of Am ...

taught animal drawing. The school arranged for the sale of artworks by graduates and students. Its original directors were

James Carroll Beckwith James Carroll Beckwith (September 23, 1852 – October 24, 1917) was an American landscape, portrait and genre painter whose Naturalist style led to his recognition in the late nineteenth and very early twentieth century as a respected figure i ...

of the Art Students League of New York and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

; Reverend Dr. John Wesley Brown of Saint Thomas Church, lawyer and statesman Elihu Root, and Ellen Dunlap Hopkins. Its later supporters included

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

, and

Adolph Lewisohn Adolph Lewisohn (May 27, 1849 – August 17, 1938) was a German Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist. He is the namesake of Lewisohn Hall (which formerly housed the Scho ...

. Within two years of operation, two of its students were the first women to join the New York Sketch Club and a student was the first woman to have her work presented with male architects at the

Architectural League The Architectural League of New York is a non-profit organization "for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines". The league dates from 1881, when Cass Gilbert organized meetings at the Salmagundi Club for ...

. The school outgrew its rented quarters and rented additional space an adjacent building.

Harvey Wiley Corbett Harvey Wiley Corbett (January 8, 1873 – April 21, 1954) was an American architect primarily known for skyscraper and office building designs in New York and London, and his advocacy of tall buildings and modernism in architecture. Early life ...

, an architect and instructor at the school ran the Atelier Corbett and the school's architectural department, based upon the principles that he learned at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

in France. When it was clear that a new building was needed, he engaged his students to work on the plans for the building, some paid at scale wages.

1908 landmark building

The New York School of Applied Design building, located at 160 Lexington Avenue on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and East 30th Street, is a neoclassical building of terra cotta, brick, and stone. The five-story building, built in 1908 and 1909, was designed by architect

of the firm Pell & Corbett, and funded by

and

. The front entry on 30th Street has a double-paneled doorway and paneled

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

, above which is a cornice and then a five-paned transom. Alongside the doorway are

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s. The high ashlar base includes a

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

made from casts of the

Parthenon The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...

frieze held in the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles (), also known as the Parthenon Marbles ( el, Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα, lit. "sculptures of the Parthenon"), are a collection of Classical Greece, Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of th ...

collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. Architectural features include

ionic column The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...

s, a terra cotta entablature with classical moldings, and a terra cotta cornice with ornate acanthus scrolls and

palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...

s. On the fifth floor is a skylit studio. The steep gabled roof is made of tin and galvanized iron. By 1977, there had been no major changes to the original building design. At the time it was criticized in an ''

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

'' magazine article as "drastically modern". 160 Lexington Avenue frieze Lex Ave

The building, which faces 30th Street, was designated a New York City Landmark in 1977 for its "special character, special historical and aesthetic interest and value as part of the development, heritage and cultural characteristics of New York City." The building 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 ...

on December 16, 1982. In 1986, the building no longer housed an art school. The building, purchased by Altro Health and Rehabilitation Services, was used as vocational training center.

Touro College Touro University is a private Jewish university system headquartered in New York City, with branches throughout the United States as well as one each in Germany, Israel and Russia. It was founded by Bernard Lander in 1971 and named for Isaac ...

purchased the building in 1990 or 1991. In 1992, the building underwent a $750,000 renovation, led by the architectural firm Lemberger Brody Associates, and became the school's Lexington Avenue campus, It has ten classrooms, a library, two reading rooms, and a laboratory. The building retains its oversized windows and skylights. Classes began in September 1992. Touro sold it in 2006 to Lexington Landmark Properties. It is now the site of

Dover Street Market Dover Street Market is a multi-brand retailer originally located on Dover Street, in Mayfair, London. It has stores in New York City, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing and Los Angeles. Dover Street Market was created by Rei Kawakubo of Japanese fashio ...

, having undergone an architectural project that reflects the design aesthetics of founder

Rei Kawakubo (b. 1942) is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. She is the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market. In recognition of the notable design contributions of Kawakubo, an exhibition of her designs entitled '' Rei ...

, which was implemented by architect Richard H. Lewis. Within the interior of the building, is a glass elevator, three 60-foot pillars, and art installations.

Ongoing activities

By 1910, there were 4,000 women who had attended the school. Beginning that year, there was an affiliation with

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

that allowed the school's students to take courses at Columbia for two years, and then enroll in Columbia. The affiliation continued until 1912 when the Atelier Columbia was established; Atelier Corbett was a forerunner of this organization. Austin W. Lord was also an instructor of architecture courses. In 1915, architect James Monroe Hewlett and Anne Dornin where architecture instructors. For her role with the school, Dunlap Hopkins was awarded the Michael Friedsam Gold Medal. The citation stated, "Courageous leader in the education of women, student of the arts and friend of the artists, sympathetic teacher of young designers destined to improve by their work and their ideas the standards of art in industry, founder of the New York School of Applied Design and for 45 years its guide and counselor, devout adherent of the belief that the might of the fine design will make the right of successful industrial art." She died in 1939. Architect Harvey Wiley Corbett eventually became President of the school in 1938, a position he held until his death in 1954.

Alumni

* Ruth Maxon Adams * Ilse Bischoff *

Isabel Bishop Isabel Bishop (March 3, 1902 – February 19, 1988) was an American painter and graphic artist. Bishop studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League of New York, where she would later become an instructor. She was most notable fo ...

* Rosina Cox Boardman *

Bessie Marsh Brewer Bessie Marsh Brewer (1884–1952) was a Canadian-American printmaker, painter, sculptor and teacher. She studied at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and at the Art Students League with Robert Henri and John Sloan. She illustrated ...

Minna Citron Minna Wright Citron (October 15, 1896 – December 21, 1991) was an American painter and printmaker. Her early prints focus on the role of women, sometimes in a satirical manner, in a style known as urban realism. Early life and education ...

* Mary Gannon and Alice Hands, cofounders of Gannon and Hands *

Minetta Good Minetta Good, also known as Minnetta Good (1895–1946), was an American painter and printmaker who was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Her work often depicted farm scenes, family life, and/or transportation. Biography Born in ...

* Dorothy Grider * Martha Brookes Hutcheson *

Hildreth Meiere Hildreth may refer to: Places *Hildreth, California *Hildreth, Nebraska Hildreth is a village in Franklin County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 378 at the 2010 census. History Hildreth was founded in 1886 when the railroad was ex ...

* Eugenie Shonnard * Nina Spalding Stevens

Organizational changes

New York Phoenix School of Design

The school reincorporated as the co-educational New York Phoenix School of Design in 1944, after merging with the Phoenix Art Institute that was founded in 1925.

Merger with Pratt Institute

In 1974, the New York Phoenix School of Design merged with the Pratt Institute to form the Pratt-New York Phoenix School of Design, which offered three-year certificate programs in art and design at least into the late 1970s. In 1979, it was renamed the Pratt Manhattan Center. In 1986, the building was sold and it was no longer used as an art school. Records are archived at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

In popular culture

On the CBS television show '' Person of Interest'', the building at 160 Lexington Avenue was used in the 2011 pilot episode for exterior shots of the "Library" which was the base of operations for Harold Finch and his team.

References

External links

{{Authority control Art schools in New York City Educational institutions established in 1892 New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Buildings and structures in Manhattan School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Neoclassical architecture in New York City New York School of Applied Design for Women alumni 1892 establishments in New York (state) Women in New York City