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FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor rallies the crowd and talks about FFRF's legal work (we have 4 full time attorneys on staff to address state church issues and about our new national television ad, which you can view here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEEIBNeIBLY&feature=channel
FFRF was a major sponsor of the Reason Rally and is the largest Atheist/Agnostic/Freethought group in the country. We hope someday you'll join us:
Secular Songstress Shelley Segal wows the crowd at the Reason Rally. The night before she played at FFRF's private dinner and did a duet with FFRF Co-President Dan Barker.
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor rallies the crowd and talks about FFRF's legal work (we have 4 full time attorneys on staff to address state church issues and about our new national television ad, which you can view here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEEIBNeIBLY&feature=channel
FFRF was a major sponsor of the Reason Rally and is the largest Atheist/Agnostic/Freethought group in the country. We hope someday you'll join us:
Richard Dawkins will be speaking at FFRF's October 12-13, 2012, convention in Portland, Oregon.
More info can be found here: ffrf.org/outreach/convention/
The Rally began with a military ceremony and Pledge of Allegiance, the original pledge without the divisive 1954 addition, "under God."
There are plenty of Atheists in Foxholes, including a substantial portion of FFRF's membership.
FFRF Co President Dan Barker greeting his fans.
Support Dan by joining FFRF:http://ffrf.org/get-involved/membership/
FFRF Co President Dan Barker greeting his fans.
Support Dan by joining FFRF:http://ffrf.org/get-involved/membership/
The Rally began with a military ceremony and Pledge of Allegiance, the original pledge without the divisive 1954 addition, "under God."
There are plenty of Atheists in Foxholes, including a substantial portion of FFRF's membership. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.
FFRF gave out rally signs, stickers, copies of Freethought Today (the only freethought newspaper in the country), bags, and more!
Dan Barker De-baptizes the atheist masses. Get de-baptized today
ffrf.org/shop/certificates/set-of-2-frameable-debaptismal...
Peace Mural in Berlin:
In Memory of Hiroshima und Nagasaki
For a World without Nuclear Weapons
Greenpeace.
Artwork by @Eme_Freethinker & @Pen_Chill
Gemeinsame Aktion von Greenpeace Berlin und den Künstlern Eme Freethinker + Pen Chill zum 75. Jahrestag des Abwurfs der US-Atombombe auf Hiroshima am 06. August 2020 in Berlin an einer Hauswand der Köpenicker Straße 175 in Kreuzberg.
Heute vor 75 Jahren wurde um 1:15 Uhr die erste Atombombe auf Hiroshima abgeworfen. Das darf nie wieder passieren. Als ein dauerhaftes Mahnmal hat @greenpeace_bln und
@greenpeace_de zusammen mit den Künstlern Eme Freethinker & Pen Chill dieses Peace Mural in Berlin geschaffen.
Text auf den Transparenten:
Hiroshima und Nagasaki mahnen uns zum Frieden!
Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag unterzeichnen!
© Bernd Sauer-Diete
Early Birds check out FFRF's free stuff. In no time the FFRF table was completely swamped with people! It was wonderful to see so many atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers.
American anarchist and publisher.
Born April 7, 1854 at Dartmouth, MA
"Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854-1939) published The Radical Review from 1877 to 1878, and the anarchist magazine Liberty from 1881 to 1908. The journal’s banner read “Liberty – Not the daughter but the mother of order,” signaling Tucker’s stance as a philosophical or individualist anarchist. His magazine was the first to publish George Bernard Shaw in the U.S., and to translate Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Tucker also published other works considered radical at the time, such as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata, and Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol.
A curious contradiction perhaps was Tucker’s deep commitment to the fine points of typesetting for all his publications. For his eightieth birthday in 1934, friends reprinted his 1892 text Why I Am An Anarchist (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press 1934) in a limited edition of 100 copies with “Initial and embellishments . . . by Frederic W. Goudy," the modern master American book and type designer with a consciously archaic style.
Born to an old Massachusetts family, Tucker attended M.I.T. and lived in France before working for the Boston Globe. He moved to New York in 1892, and later opened the Unique Bookshop, which specialized in the works of anarchists, atheists and freethinkers. The bookstore burned beyond recovery in 1908, and Tucker and his lover Pearl Johnson, with their 6-week old infant daughter, moved first to France, before relocating permanently to Monaco."
from New York Public Library website digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm...
The odd angle of the picture is how it is mounted in the passport application volume.
FFRF Co President Dan Barker De-Baptizes new FFRF members.
Get your De-Baptismal Certificate signed by Dan Barker today! ffrf.org/shop/certificates/set-of-2-frameable-debaptismal...
Ben Wise discussing "William Alexander Percy: The Curious Life of a Mississippi Planter and Sexual Freethinker"
Jessica Ahlquist, gave a moving speech about how, when others alienated her and spouted messages of hate, FFRF stood by her and gave her support at a private FFRF dinner. Here, she addresses the crowd of "evil little things."
FFRF Co President Dan Barker De-Baptizes new FFRF members.
Get your De-Baptismal Certificate signed by Dan Barker today! ffrf.org/shop/certificates/set-of-2-frameable-debaptismal...
FFRF Co-President Dan Barker plays some of his secular music for the crowd. Get it here: ffrf.org/shop/freethought-music/
FFRF was a major sponsor of the Reason Rally and is the largest Atheist/Agnostic/Freethought group in the country. We hope someday you'll join us:
Music Teacher and HomelessnessNika (name changed for privacy) was one of our clients on 12/11/2021. She explained that she is a music teacher who has 4 hours of work per week. Sometimes she sleeps unsheltered and sometimes she uses a shelter or shares a tent. It is difficult to get a job when she cannot wear clean clothes…Nika (name changed for privacy) was one of our clients on 12/11/2021. She explained that she is a music teacher who has 4 hours of work per week. Sometimes she sleeps unsheltered and sometimes she uses a shelter or shares a tent. It is difficult to get a job when she cannot wear clean clothes to an interview. But, she does have a cell phone and uses the Georgetown Ministry Drop-in Center as address. She was thankful for the cold-weather gear we passed out.
Nika wanted to talk about religion and god. She was not sure if there is a god or not. We suggested that she might be an agnostic. But the word she identified most with was Freethinker. She does believe in a concept like Gaia, but does not consider it to be god--more like a gentle aspect of the earth. She thought gaia might be watching over the earth, but she wasn't sure. She explained that some shelters expect her to pray communally, which she is not inclined to do.
She let us take her picture and agreed to let us use it in the blog because she was unidentifiable. Homelessness carries a stigma, and she didn't wan't to be identifiable.Joseph Shaw
FFRF Co-President Dan Barker plays some of his secular music for the crowd. Get it here: ffrf.org/shop/freethought-music/
FFRF was a major sponsor of the Reason Rally and is the largest Atheist/Agnostic/Freethought group in the country. We hope someday you'll join us:
FFRF Co-President Dan Barker plays some of his secular music for the crowd. Get it here: ffrf.org/shop/freethought-music/
FFRF was a major sponsor of the Reason Rally and is the largest Atheist/Agnostic/Freethought group in the country. We hope someday you'll join us:
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States
Designed by William H. Gaylor, the Long Island Business College was built by Henry C. Wright, who founded WrightÃ-s Business College in Williamsburg in 1873. Like other such colleges of the time,
Wright trained clerical workers, primarily young men and women, for careers with the many large banks, insurance companies, and industrial concerns that were proliferating throughout Brooklyn and the then- separate city of New York. Enrollment in WrightÃ-s college boomed, and in 1890, he purchased the lot at 143-149 South 8th Street for a grand new home for the school, which would be renamed the Long Island Business College.
The $90,000 building opened with a reception attended by BrooklynÃ-s mayor; Wright called it ìperhaps the only [building] in the country erected and devoted solely to the work of business education.î
Among the schoolÃ-s students was John F. Hylan, who would go on to serve as New York CityÃ-s mayor from 1918 to 1925. In 1920, the college itself was sold and moved to a different Brooklyn location, and in 1922, the building reopened as Public School 166.
During its time as the Long Island Business College, the buildingÃ-s assembly hall hosted the meetings and lectures of the Brooklyn Philosophical Association, one of the countryÃ-s leading freethought organizations during the period that has come to be known as freethoughtÃ-s ìgolden age.î
Many prominent speakers lectured there, including anarchist Emma Goldman, labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs, suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, future mayor William J. Gaynor, sitting mayor John Purroy Mitchel, and anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock. In 1943, it became an early home of the Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America, serving as both a teachersÃ- academy and as a day and boarding high school for girls. After World War II, the building, which is a significant landmark in the development of South WilliamsburgÃ-s Jewish community, became a magnet for hundreds of young Holocaust survivors who sought to further their studies.
Gaylor based the schoolÃ-s design on BrooklynÃ-s recent public schools. The building, which combines the Romanesque Revival and Second Empire styles, and incorporates elements of other contemporary styles, features rough-faced brownstone trim, a five-part facade with central tower and end pavilions, slate-covered mansards, and a convex roof with square cap. Well-preserved today, the Long Island Business College building remains a commanding presence in South Williamsburg, one that is as rich in cultural history as it is architecturally.
DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Constructed in 1891-92, the Long Island Business College is located on South 8th Street between Bedford and Driggs Avenues in BrooklynÃ-s Williamsburg neighborhood. In 1802, Richard M. Woodhull, a prosperous Manhattan merchant, purchased a 13-acre tract at the foot of present-day North 2nd Street, which he named Williamsburgh after its surveyor, Col. Jonathan Williams. Williamsburgh was incorporated as a village in 1827; its population more than doubled between 1840 and 1845, and grew even more rapidly in the 1850s with the arrival of large numbers of German immigrants.
In 1851, the state granted a city charter to Williamsburgh, which then had more than 30,000 residents and was the 20th-largest American city. Industries were attracted to WilliamsburghÃ-s East River waterfront by its deepwater piers, available land, and cheap labor provided by a booming population; docks, shipyards, distilleries, foundries, mills, sugar refineries, and glass and pharmaceuticals factories made Williamsburgh a major industrial and commercial center. It would remain independent only until 1855, when Williamsburgh was consolidated with the City of Brooklyn and Town of Flatbush. At that time, the ìhî at the end of its name was dropped, and Williamsburg, along with Greenpoint to its north and Bushwick to the east, became known as the ìEastern District.î
By the 1850s, a number of institutions had emerged to serve WilliamsburgÃ-s burgeoning population and thriving businesses. The post-Civil War commercial boom brought redevelopment to Broadway, WilliamsburgÃ-s most important commercial street and main thoroughfare, one block north of the Long Island Business College. Significant new commercial buildings arose along Broadway, including the Kings County Savings Bank (King & Wilcox, 1868), at 135 Broadway; the Smith, Gray & Company Building (attributed to William H. Gaylor, 1870), now at 103 Broadway; and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (George B. Post, 1870-75), now at 175 Broadway, all designated New York City Landmarks. Although ferry service between Manhattan and Williamsburg had been a key to the neighborhoodÃ-s residential and commercial development, population surged with the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge (Lefferts L. Buck and Henry Hornbostel).
Proposed in 1883, the bridge opened with considerable fanfare in 1903, serving all forms of transportation, including trolley cars and rapid transit. Thousands of Eastern European Jews from the Lower East Side crossed the bridge to settle in Williamsburg, and Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian Orthodox enclaves also developed. Many of the neighborhoodÃ-s most prosperous residents left during the Depression, and by the late 1930s, Williamsburg, especially the area south of Broadway, was a magnet for Hasidic Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Puerto Ricans, attracted by the neighborhoodÃ-s large manufacturing base, settled there in large numbers beginning in the 1950s.
Older buildings were demolished for the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and new public housing complexes; the exodus of manufacturing left abandoned industrial and residential buildings in its wake. Starting in the 1970s, musicians and artists began moving to WilliamsburgÃ-s Northside, which has seen substantial redevelopment and gentrification in the past two decades. In addition to the large Hasidic community on WilliamsburgÃ-s Southside, the neighborhood has a sizeable Latino population, including Dominican immigrants who began settling in the neighborhood in large numbers in the 1980s; substantial African-American, Italian, and Polish communities are also present in Williamsburg today.
Long Island Business College and Its Building
The founder of Long Island Business College, Henry C. Wright, was born in 1843 in a small village near Brockville, Ontario on the St. Lawrence River. He received informal business training from his father, who owned his own company, and attended the FriendsÃ- College (now Pickering College), followed by the Toronto Normal School. Wright, who married the former Adelaide Brownscomb in 1866, taught in Canadian public schools after his graduation. Around 1870, the Wrights moved to Philadelphia, where Henry worked in an accounting business. After about a year, they moved to Brooklyn, where Henry found employment at a business college. Three years later, he founded his own school, WrightÃ-s Business College, on South 6th Street in Williamsburg, which occupied ìone unpretentious room with the most meager facilities.î Wright was the sole faculty and staff member, ìacting as proprietor, principal, teacher, and janitor ... with a mere handful of students.î
Commercial colleges like WrightÃ-s first appeared in the mid-19th century, paralleling the rise of large banks, insurance companies, and industrial concerns, many of which were located in Brooklyn and the then-separate city of New York. Too complex to be overseen by any single person, these entities required sophisticated, bureaucratic management ìbased on a steady flow of information from clerical workers.î At that time, few students attended secondary schoolsó BrooklynÃ-s first public day high school would not open until 1878óand commercial schools offered young people who were not interested in pursuing an academic course entry to the business world via the burgeoning clerical field, which grew from 77,000 workers in 1870 to almost 700,000 in 1900.
Primarily, these schools taught the ìfine handî required for drafting business documents, as well as mathematical, compositional, and stenographic skills. Students could be as young as 12 or 13, although they generally ranged from 17 to 20 years of age; schools ranged in size from a few dozen students up to 900. Women initially made up a small fraction of pupils, but typing was seen as ìwomenÃ-s workî from its very start, and as typewriter use soared in the 1880s, their enrollment surged. By 1892, one-third of commercial school students were female, and by 1900, three-quarters of all stenographers and typists were women. Around the turn of the 20th century, public high schools began competing with private business colleges by offering similar commercial courses, and within the next two decades, mechanization replaced many clerical positions, leading to a decline in business college enrollment after 1920.
Soon after its founding, WrightÃ-s Business College moved to the Kings County Savings Bank Building on Broadway. By 1880, the school had six teachers in addition to Wright, including one woman, Miss M. Rowe, who taught stenography, or phonography as it was known at the time. WrightÃ-s college, according to its catalog, was intended to ìthoroughly educate boys and young men for a practical business lifeîóalthough women had been admitted from the schoolÃ-s earliest yearsóìand to fit them to enter upon advanced scientific and classical courses of study.î Three general courses were offered; the commercial course, for those embarking on a business career, provided lessons in bookkeeping, commercial arithmetic, penmanship, letter- writing, English composition, spelling, grammar, commercial law, business ethics, and ìfamiliar[ity] with all kinds of business papers, from the making out of a simple bill to the most elaborate statements and balance sheets.î
WrightÃ-s classical course was intended to prepare students for college, including instruction in Latin, Greek, philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and history. WrightÃ-s third course, the academic course, appears to have been remedial, with instruction in spelling, word definitions, reading, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, grammar, history, penmanship, chemistry, and anatomy. Wright promoted the schoolÃ-s proximity to New York Cityóìthe financial heart of the continentîóas well as its easy access from Manhattan by ferry and from all parts of Brooklyn by streetcar. Day and evening sessions were held, and Wright reached out to area business owners and managers in helping to place his students. the college continued to grow, and by 1887, it had more than 400 students and occupied the entire Kings County Savings Bank Building above the ground floor.
By the end of the 1880s, the college had exceeded 500 students, and in 1890, Wright purchased the future site of the Long Island Business College building, a 76Ã--wide-by-100Ã--deep plot on the north side of South 8th Street, for $18,500. As reported in the Newtown Register,
It is Mr. WrightÃ-s intention to erect thereon in the near future a commodious and handsome college building that will accommodate upwards of 1,000 students. Mr. WrightÃ-s present facilities have been taxed to their utmost during the past two years to accommodate the constantly increasing numbers of students, and it has been apparent during this time that increased facilities would soon have to be secured. Mr. Wright, with his keen foresight into business as well as matters educational, has taken the initial step towards what, we are certain, will prove to be an important feature among the growing interests of the Eastern District and a source of large profits to himself.
In April of 1891, architect William H. Gaylor filed the application for the new building, and on June 23, 1891, its cornerstone was laid. At that time, it was reported that the collegeÃ-s name would be changed to the Long Island Business College with the opening of its new home. On the evening of February 5, 1892, the doors of the new building were thrown open for a reception, with guests including Brooklyn Mayor David A. Boody.
The Brooklyn Eagle reported that the building, which was lighted entirely by electricity, was ìbrilliantly illuminatedî for the event. It also noted that the new Long Island Business College had a capacity of 800 students and was ìsupplied with numerous windows, assuring an abundance of light and ventilationî; its ground floor contained a large assembly room of 60 by 60 feet, and the second and third floors contained six classrooms each. The janitorÃ-s quarters, a lunchroom, and ìa few classroomsî were located on the top story. The main, central entrance on South 8th Street was for visitors only; male and female students entered through gates on each side of the building.
According to Wright, the building, which cost more than $90,000, was ìperhaps the only one in the country erected and devoted solely to the work of business education.î By 1896, the college had its own long-distance telephone, ìwhich has become a necessity of modern life, and is particularly useful to an institution to which many business men have learned to look whenever they need the services of trained assistants.î It also contained a bank, which provided students with a convenient place to deposit and withdraw money and for an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the banking process.
The schoolÃ-s curriculum had broadened since the 1880s, with Wright adding preparatory courses for the state Regents and federal, state, and municipal civil service examinations. Its geographic reach had also expanded, as the school had started advertising in newspapers as far afield as Hempstead and Sag Harbor, noting its accessibility via the Long Island Rail Road. By 1897, enrollment exceeded 700 students. Among the schoolÃ-s pupils in the 1890s was John F. Hylan, who would go on to serve as New York CityÃ-s mayor from 1918 to 1925. Hylan, who had moved to Brooklyn in 1888 from his boyhood home in the Catskills, worked as an engineer on a Brooklyn elevated railroad while studying for the Regents exam at nights at the Long Island Business College. After passing the Regents, Hylan enrolled in New York Law School, which he graduated from in 1897.
The Long Island Business College continued under WrightÃ-s leadership until October of 1907, when he was incapacitated by illness. In May of the following year, Wright, in the
presence of his wife Adelaide and their daughter Lois S. Bissell, entered into an agreement with Edwin Leibfreed, the former dean of the American Commercial Schools Institution, which sought to raise the standards for commercial instruction by training commercial-school teachers. Under this agreement, Leibfreed, for an annual fee of $7,250, leased the Long Island Business College from Wright for ten years. He was required to operate the school under its existing name and was given the right, at the end of the agreement, to purchase the school and its building from Wright for $100,000. Wright died in 1909, and in 1914, Leibfreed apparently became ill, and the agreement was terminated. At that time, LoisÃ- husband, John Newton Bissell, the former vice president and general manager of the New York-Queens Electric Light and Power Company, became the collegeÃ-s new leader. Six years later, Bissell sold the school to Drake Business School, which moved it to the Shubert Theater Building on Monroe Street and Broadway and operated it as the Drake Long Island Business College. The Long Island Business College building was sold to the City of New York in 1921 and reopened the following year as Public School 166, which had previously been located at South 4th and Havemeyer Streets.
The Brooklyn Philosophical Association
From the year of the buildingÃ-s opening to 1918, the ground-floor assembly hall of the Long Island Business College hosted the meetings and lectures of the Brooklyn Philosophical Association. Founded in 1873 ìfor the attainment and diffusion of knowledge on scientific, social, ethical, and religious subjects, and for the comparison of ideas by means of lectures and discussions,î the association was one of the countryÃ-s leading freethought associations during the period, between the 1870s and World War I, that has come to be known as freethoughtÃ-s ìgolden age.î
New York City was a major center of freethought, whose followers reject organized religion and ìbelieve in the use of reason, in the value of ethics, and in the elimination of superstitions of all kinds from the minds of men.î During this period, freethought was an eclectic movement, and many of its followers held positions that were outside of the political mainstream. In favor of the separation of church and state, and for uncensored political speech and unfettered artistic expression, freethinkers of the time fought for ìexpanded legal and economic rights for women that went well beyond the narrow political goal of suffrage; the necessity of ending domestic violence against women and children; . opposition to capital punishment and to inhumane conditions in prisons and insane asylums; and, above all, the expansion of public education.î
WorkersÃ- rights and the free dissemination of birth-control information were other major freethinker causes.
Although freethought journals existed at the timeóthe most influential, the Truth Seeker, was published in New Yorkólectures were the primary means by which freethinkers promoted their ideas to the broader populace, attracting ìa larger public that was interested in but did not define itself by religious skepticism.î In the assembly hall of Long Island Business College, the Brooklyn Philosophical Association hosted several lectures by leading figures of the political left, including anarchist, feminist, and free-love advocate Emma Goldman, who lectured there at least twice, in 1898 and 1906.
In February of 1898, a lecture by labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs, one of the most prominent political figures of the day, ìserved to fill the hall of the Long Island Business College to its doors.î Carrie Chapman Catt, who had succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, spoke there in 1901, and in the following year, the hall hosted writer and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Hubert Henry Harrison, the Caribbean-American political activist described by A.
Philip Randolph as ìthe father of Harlem radicalism,î addressed the Association in 1912. Perhaps the most surprising speaker was Anthony Comstock, the leader of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who had been deputized, with the 1873 passage of the so-called Comstock Act, as a special agent of the postal service. In this position, Comstock was empowered with arresting senders of materials deemed to be obscene, including birth-control information and fine-art publications depicting nudes. ìNever in all of his vice hunting career did Mr. Comstock face such a turbulent throng,î the Eagle reported, as he did ìfrom the exponents of free thought and free loveî at his 1902 speech at the Long Island Business College.
Other notable speakers hosted by the collegeÃ-s assembly hall included publisher and prohibitionist Isaac K. Funk, and suffragist and temperance advocate Mary Elizabeth Lease, in 1897; populist politician William Sulzer, who lectured as a congressman in 1898 and again in 1914, following his impeachment as Governor of New York; and judge and future mayor William J. Gaynor, in 1899 and 1901. Two leading proponents of birth control, Dr. Frederick A. Blossom and Dr. William J. Robinson, spoke in 1916 and 1917, respectively, and in the latter year, the association also hosted Mayor John Purroy Mitchel and the novelist and minister Bouck White, a major Socialist figure of the time.
Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary
Following its 1922 conversion into Public School 166, the Long Island Business College building remained a city school through the 1930s. In March of 1943, the City sold it to Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America, which was then located at 505 Bedford Avenue.
The Bais Yaakov, or Beth Jacob, educational movement was established in Krakow in 1917 by Sarah Schenirer. A seamstress who had educated herself in Jewish scripture and philosophy, Schenirer founded the first Bais Yaakov school seeking to ìfight the spread of secularization and acculturation among Orthodox womenówho until then had received no formal Jewish education.î By 1937, Bais Yaakov schools had been established throughout Poland as well as in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Lithuania, and teacher training seminaries were operating in Krakow and Czernowitz (now the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi).
In America in the mid-1930s, no schools above the elementary school level existed specifically for Orthodox girls. Williamsburg parents and religious leaders were concerned that their daughters were being secularized by the public schools, where they participated in ìsocial activities that clashed with Orthodox proprieties.î The Beth Jacob Teachers Seminary of America, the first such school in the country, was founded in Williamsburg in 1938 by Vichna Kaplan, nee Eisen, a star student of SchenirerÃ-s at the Krakow seminary who had recently married the American-born rabbi Boruch Kaplan. The goal of the seminary, which also functioned as a high school for boarding and day students, was to supply teachers for a network of Bais Yaakov schools in the U.S. The first American Bais Yaakov school was established in Williamsburg; by 1945, others were open in Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Brownsville, East New York, and Brighton Beach.
The seminary made headlines soon after its move to the Long Island Business College building when its executive director, Rabbi Samuel Rubin, enlisted in the Merchant Marine in November of 1944. Rubin had emigrated to the U.S. in 1938 from Poland; his family members, who stayed behind and later escaped to Czechoslovakia, had gone missing and were presumed killed by the Nazis. ìDetermined to do as much as he [could] to liberate peoples persecuted by the Nazis,î the Brooklyn Eagle reported, Rubin, who was in his 30s, tried to enlist in the Army, but was rejected because of his age. After his swearing-in to the Merchant Marine, Rubin shaved his beard and reported for training in Sheepshead Bay. Following the warÃ-s end, the seminary became a magnet for studious young survivors of the Holocaust.
The first was 14-year-old Reise Gruenzweig, who was a survivor of Auschwitz, where most of her family was killed. After nearly starving there and being liberated by the Allies, she stowed away on a ship to the U.S. and was detained for several months on Ellis Island before receiving a visa that allowed her to stay with Brooklyn relatives. Gruenzweig enrolled in Beth Jacob Seminary in 1946. By 1948, 175 of the schoolÃ-s 600 pupils were European refugees, most of whom had labored in concentration- camp munitions factories and lost all of their European relatives. Many of the girls sought to return to Europe following the completion of their studies, as all of the European seminaries had been destroyed, leaving a dearth of teachers there.
The seminary remained in the Long Island Business College building until the mid- 1960s, when it moved to 132 South 8th Street. The function of the building between this time and 1980, when it was listed as United Talmudical Academy Torah Vyirah, is unclear. In 1984, Beth Jacob Seminary sold the building to a group of artists including Lars Cederholm, Doug Ohlson, Hiroshi Kariya, Bernard Kirschenbaum, and Susan Weil, who soon converted it into loft spaces. It remains an artistsÃ- co-op today. Having served as the Beth Jacob TeachersÃ- Seminary during its early formative years and as an academic refuge for young Holocaust survivors, the former Long Island Business College building is a significant landmark in the development of South WilliamsburgÃ-s Jewish community.
William H. Gaylor
The architect of the Long Island Business College, William H. Gaylor, was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1821 and apprenticed with the prominent carpenter and architect Edwin Bishop before moving to Williamsburgh, where he worked for builders Golder & Folk. Gaylor opened his own architectural office at age 21, and around 1863 ìentered on the business of Master Builder.î In 1876, Gaylor, along with architect Arthur Crooks, were appointed by the Brooklyn Board of Aldermen to inspect the cityÃ-s public buildings for safety.
Six years later, Gaylor was appointed Commissioner of Buildings by Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low, a position he held through LowÃ-s administration. Gaylor was a prolific architect, designing public, commercial, and residential buildings throughout Brooklyn. He is most widely known for his cast-iron-fronted commercial buildings, including 2 Wooster Street in Manhattan (1871-73, in the SoHo Cast Iron Historic District), and a series of three buildings erected for the firm of Smith, Gray & Co.: the Lyceum Building (1873-75); 894-896 Greenpoint Avenue (1877-78, in the Greenpoint Historic District); and 126 Broadway (1884, erected by Thomas and William Lamb, builder). The design of the cast-iron-fronted Smith, Gray & Company Building at 103 Broadway in Brooklyn (1870, a designated New York City Landmark) has been attributed to Gaylor, who also designed the Bedford Theater building (1891) at 109 South 6th Street. One of his sons, Edward F. Gaylor, also became an architect, working for his father for 14 years prior to establishing his own practice in 1882.
From the early 1870s to his death, in 1895, GaylorÃ-s office was located at 110 South 8th Street, close to the site of the Long Island Business College building.
Design of the Long Island Business College
William Gaylor based the design of the Long Island Business College on BrooklynÃ-s most modern and impressive schools of their day: the public schools designed by James W. Naughton, Superintendent of Buildings for the Brooklyn Board of Education from 1879 until his death in 1898.
BrooklynÃ-s public schools began to acquire a readily identifiable character as public institutional buildings in the late 1850s following the appointment of NaughtonÃ-s predecessor, Samuel B. Leonard, as the school systemÃ-s chief architect. LeonardÃ-s preferred style was the Rundbogenstil, or ìround-arch style,î a German style related to the early Romanesque Revival, which was imported to America in the mid-1840s and introduced to New York by architects Richard Upjohn, James Renwick, and Leopold Eidlitz.
In the 1870s, Leonard changed his approach and began incorporating elements of the French-inspired Second Empire style, chiefly its prominent pavilions and mansard roofs, which add plasticity and verticality to facades and create bold, picturesque rooflines. Red brick and brownstone were the primary materials used. A central entrance tower was often employed in conjunction with the style, functioning as a central pavilion in the design and ìcarrying the eye upward with pleasant relief.î
The use of Second Empire style features elevated the neighborhood public school, giving it an air of cosmopolitan modernity recalling the grand buildings and palaces of Napoleon IIIÃ-s newly redesigned Paris; the mansarded public school with its tower vied with the church steeple as the most prominent element in the skyline of the 19th-century Brooklyn neighborhood. When Naughton succeeded Leonard, he continued his approach, combining the Second Empire with other styles, in works such as GirlsÃ- High School (1885-86, with a 1912 addition by C.B.J. Snyder), Public School 71K (1888-89), and Public School 73 (1888, with an 1895 addition), all of which feature five-part main facades, each with a central tower and projecting end pavilions. GirlsÃ- High School may have been an especially appealing model for Gaylor and his client, Henry Wright: one of the first public secondary schools in what would become New York City, GirlsÃ- High School was among BrooklynÃ-s most prestigious educational institutions, associated with high-achieving girls.
Wright undoubtedly sought to convey the same air of distinction and academic quality to the girls and young women who were making up an increasing proportion of his schoolÃ-s enrollment.
Faced with Philadelphia brick and Connecticut brownstone, the Long Island Business College is four stories high. One story taller than the typical Naughton school and sited on a comparatively narrow lot, it has a strong vertical thrust that makes it an especially imposing presence on South 8th Street. As with many of NaughtonÃ-s later schools, the building mixes the Second Empire style with other contemporary influences. Its symmetrical five-part main facade with end pavilions and central tower crowned by a convex mansard roof with a square cap, and its slate-covered mansards crowning the second and fourth bays, are representative of the Second Empire style, while its rough-faced brownstone trim, curved bricks, and round-arch-headed openings are characteristic of the Richardsonian Romanesque, which was then at the height of its popularity in Brooklyn.
The finely carved ornament within the spandrels of the main-entrance arch, as well as the columnar third-story mullions and carved rosettes at the second through fourth floors, are classical in influence and typical of the contemporaneous Queen Anne style. Italianate influence is seen in the grouped round-arch-headed dormer windows crowned by heavy moldings; the brick corbelling above the fourth-story windows of the central tower and end pavilions is a holdover from the early Romanesque Revival used by Leonard for his early Brooklyn schools.
The building remains well-preserved. Today, the Long Island Business College building remains a commanding presence in South Williamsburg, one that is as rich in cultural history as it is architecturally.
Description
The Long Island Business College is a three- and four-story educational building on the north side of South 8th Street, designed in the Second Empire and Romanesque Revival styles, and incorporating elements of the Queen Anne, Italianate, and early Romanesque styles.
Primary South 8th Street Facade
Historic: Five-bay facade with projecting central tower and end pavilions; four-story main facade with straight and curved red Philadelphia brick and smooth- and rough-faced brownstone; brownstone stoop with cheek walls; round-arch-headed main-entrance opening flanked by pilasters with granite shafts and brownstone foliate capitals with egg-and-dart moldings; rough-faced brownstone main-entrance arch with pointed voussoirs and classical foliate ornament within the arch spandrels; historic main-entrance door frame with twisted engaged columns, classical denticulated transom bar, and wood transom frame; bluestone basement sill; square-headed basement window openings; rough-faced brownstone basement with smooth lintelcourse; smooth-faced brownstone first-story sillcourse; rough-faced brownstone blocks flanking main entrance, first story of end pavilions, heads and sills of first- story windows, and central second-story bay; square-headed first-story window openings crowned by pointed flat arches; round-arch-headed second-story window openings with roughfaced brownstone keystones and springers on central bay; square-headed third-story windows with classical columnar mullions and egg-and-dart moldings on central bay; window openings crowned by brownstone arches with chamfered corners at fourth story of central bay and third story of second and fourth bays; segmental-arch-headed window openings with rough-faced brownstone springers at second story of outer bays; segmental-arch-headed window openings with rough-faced brownstone springers and keystones at second story of second and fourth bays; round-arch-headed windows with rough-faced brownstone springers at third and fourth stories of outer bays; rough-faced brownstone panels and brownstone corbel blocks decorated with carved rosettes at second through fourth stories; mansard roofs faced with octagonal slate shingles crowning second and fourth bays; tripartite round-arch-headed dormer windows crowned by heavy moldings; corbelled brick coursing crowning central and end bays; denticulated cornices; convex mansard roof with square cap crowning central bay.
Alterations: Sash replacement at all stories; brownstone stoop and portions of brownstone trim resurfaced; two basement window openings filled with stucco panels; westernmost upper basement sash replaced with wood panel with metal grille and conduit; security grilles at basement and first story; main-entrance doors replaced; non-historic light fixture on main- entrance transom bar; cornices above third story of second and fourth bays replaced or covered with metal; bird spikes on dormer windows; visible rooftop railings over second and fourth bays; removal of shallow pyramidal roofs with finials that originally crowned the end pavilions; replacement roofing materials on convex mansard roof over central bay.
Secondary East Facade and South Facade of East Wing
Historic: Four stories at southern portion, and three-story east wing and northern portion of east facade; red brick laid in common bond; square-headed window openings with plain (flush) stone lintels and plain projecting stone sills; primary facade cornice continued to southern portion of east facade; corbelled and denticulated brick cornice at northern portion of east facade and south facade of east wing; brick chimneys.
Alterations: Security grille at southernmost second-story window; replacement sashes; three chimneys painted and/or parged; metal downspouts.
Secondary West Facade and South Facade of West Wing
Historic: Four stories at southern portion, and three-story west wing and northern portion of west facade; red brick laid in common bond; square-headed window openings with plain (flush) stone lintels and plain projecting stone sills; primary facade cornice continued to southern portion of west facade; corbelled and denticulated brick cornice at northern portion of west facade and south facade of west wing; brick chimneys.
Alterations: Security grilles, conduit, camera, and light fixtures at basement and first story; replacement sashes; dryer vents at first through third stories; metal downspouts; three chimneys painted and/or parged.
Site Features
Concrete front areaway with bluestone border, and non-historic metal hatch and grille; non-historic metal gate in front of western portion of property, shared with adjacent lot; non- historic metal gate in front of concrete east areaway.
- From the 2013 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
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