In 1891 Snyder took over as chief architect for the city's schools from George Debevois, whose buildings the Guide called "warehouses" that were a "civic disgrace."

Work on the school began in 1896, and it opened in 1899 to 1,974 students in 45 classrooms.

The limestone, brick and terra cotta building features dormers and a red tile roof, and could pass for a group of row houses if it was smaller in scale.

The drive to rehabilitate the building and covert it into apartments for low- and middle-income families began in the late 1970s, led by New York state's Harlem Urban Development Corporation and the city's Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.

[3] The building now consists of 73 rental apartments, some of them rent stabilized, on five floors.