St. Paul’s School

While in NY for Thanksgiving. I took the opportunity to visit a landmark of the town I grew up in: St. Paul’s School.

Built in 1879 by Cornelia Stewart, in memory of her husband and the founder of Garden City, Alexander Turney Stewart. St. Paul’s is a glorious example of High Victorian Gothic architecture and stands out among Long Island’s many cultural landmarks. However the school has been closed since 1991 and the building has fallen into disrepair.

There are some calling for it’s demolition. Not so surprisingly this is largely a group of individuals (I won’t name names but they aren’t hard to find on Google) who stand to make a lot of money on construction contracts and other deals if they are able to tear down the building and sell the land for other purposes.

Despite the overwhelming majority of Garden City residents voting against the demolition of St. Paul’s, the proposal to demolish it is presented as the popular option due to Garden City’s board of Trustees propping up two other undesirable options that they know residents will be split on.

St. Paul’s future remains in question but things look pretty grim.

You can learn more about the cause to save St. Paul’s here.

And you can check out my photo set here.