The Hawthorne Woolen Mill that was once the economic center of Glenville, now used as stores and office space, is across Pemberwick to the southwest.

[2]: 5 The school itself is faced in brick laid in Flemish bond trimmed with cast stone sills, keystones, and water table on a high basement.

The two-and-a-half-story classroom wing, running east–west to the south, has an octagonal wooden cupola topped with bell roof and finial.

[2]: 5 At the north end of the one-and-a-half-story auditorium wing is the main entrance, sheltered by a pedimented, tetrastyle portico.

The six round wooden columns (two of which are engaged with the north facade) rising from the stylobate paved in basket weave-patterned brick three feet (1 m) below the water table to unusual capitals with acanthus leaves around a fluted neck.

The entablature above echoes that with a fluted architrave, a plain frieze with "Bendheim Western Greenwich Civic Center" in gold lettering, and a dentilled cornice with Greek keys in the modillions.

On the east it is centered with an arched window similar to those on the auditorium wing between two cast-stone belt courses and framed with some slightly projecting bricks.

On the west end, a small flat-roofed extension projects to the south, and the fenestration consists of a row of five smaller arch windows between darker belt courses.

By the late 19th century, it had been displaced by a textile mill employing mostly Irish immigrants who comprised most of the village's population.

Expansions to the mills had nearly doubled Glenville's population, with more Polish immigrants coming in, and the school building became overcrowded.

The building's neglect and its educational impact, such as classes held in hallways, was the subject of a state report and then a scathing article on June 16, 1912 in The New York Times.

James O. Betelle, a Newark, New Jersey, architect whose large institutional and commercial commissions specialize in schools, about which he wrote a great deal, contributed the design.

The Social Service League of Greenwich operated a large community medical clinic in the building for Glenville residents.

[2]: 13 The school building quickly became the focal point of the neighborhood, displacing the declining mills that had given rise to the community in the first place.

Sundays, it is used for religious services; at other times it is used for community purposes, like Scout troop meetings, continuing education, a thrift shop, café, indoor sports and children's playgroups.