Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1897-04-01


school building in the world, says the
New York Press. Members of the
board of education who completed ar
rangements for the new school house.
and even the architects who had a
hand in drawing the plans did not fully
realize before the magnitude of the
undertaking.
Charles B. ]. Snyder superintendent
Of school buildings, thinks that the
mayor Is not fully posted on foreign
school buildings, for though he himself
is an expert on the subject, Mr.. Snyder
will not admit that the Henry street
school is as large as Mayor Strong
seems to make it appear.
The new Henry street school house
will be, however the largest school
building in this country, and this is
enough to be proud of. 1t will tower
in the air 10S feet, while the roof play
ground, the first of its kind anywhere,
will be nearly 100 feet from the street
level. The building will cover the
whole of the Henry street side of the
block, making the length nearly 200
feet. It's depth from the street will be
about 100 feet. The building will con-
tain five stories, not counting the play
ground on the roof
The figures giving the general di-
mansions do not convey much idea OF
what this new school building really
will be. In several respects, even be-
sides the innovation of the roof play
ground, the building will be note
worthy addition to New York's col
lection Of model school buildings.
Besides forty-eight class rooms, CIV
ing accommodations to about 5000
children, the building will contain
large assembly hall, commodious
gymnasium, a cooking school, a car
penter shop, library and kindergar-
ten. With all these departments an
abundance Of room is left for other ex-
periments that future boards of edu-
cation may see fit to introduce.
Besides the playground on the roof,
the whole of the first or ground floor
will be used also as playground or
recreation hall, as teachers nowadays
prefer to term it.
With these conveniences for the
amusement of the young East siders,
it Is likely that school buildings with
such playground attachments will be
kept open after school hours in order
to take the children off the street, but
as yet no definite plans in that drec-
ton have been announced.
OF the five stories the first will be
used as a play room, with possibly bath
rooms to come later. The next three
stories will contain the forty-eight
class rooms, the fourth being arranged
so as to form an assembly hall when
needed The other floor will be given
up to the carpenter shop, library and
other extra rooms.
The roof playground, being the first
Of the kind in this country, is natur-
ally the most interesting feature of the
structure The new school, officially
to be known as grammar school No. 1,
will be mixed school-that is, the
studies will be of the grammar and
primary grades, for both boys and
girls The roof garden, in consequence,
will be divided into two sections, one
for boys and the other for girls.
The roof playground will be inclosed
in huge cage.
The floor will be concerted, so that
it will be as pleasant for boy and girl
games as an asphalt street The upper
portion of the mansard roof of the
building will form a coping of about
three and half feet in height extend
ing all around the playground. Rest
ing on this will be the huge wire cage,
supported above the roof by light steel
trusses, so that no posts or girders ex-
tend to the floor of the roof.
The top of this cage will be about
sixteen feet from the floor of the roof
playground. This means that the net
work above the coping Will be about
twelve and one-half feet high The
object of the wire cage will be, strange
as it may seem, to protect persons on
the street more than for the safety of
the pupils.
The mesh of the wire network that
forms the cage will be so small that
stones, balls and other objects that
boys and girls delight to throw when
at play will not go through and fall to
the street below and injure persons
who happen to pass near the school.
The wire cage will be strong enough,
moreover, to stand good deal of as
saulting. Boys may play baseball on
the roof without fear of losing the
ball by batting out home run while
the ball is falling five stories to the
street.
Certainly.