Community Fights To Save Flatbush Landmark

Flatbush residents are fighting to save one of our community’s most historic buildings.

A petition urging Mayor de Blasio to find a way to save and restore the 1787 Erasmus Academy Building, a national historic landmark which dates back to colonial New York, is now being circulated by local residents and other concerned citizens.

The 18th century academy was the precursor to one of New York City’s most famous public schools, Erasmus Hall High School.

“We wish to restore the Erasmus Academy Building to the place it once held, so it can exemplify the City’s fine stewardship of its heritage and historic architecture,” the petition states. “We want to show Erasmus students that history matters.”

The petition urges the mayor to transfer the Erasmus Academy Building from the auspices of the Department of Education to another city agency. The DOE has said that it will not allocate funds towards badly needed repairs for the building because it cannot be used for classroom space.

The Erasmus Academy Building was one of the first buildings to receive landmark status from the City of New York, and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It sits in the center of another landmark complex, Erasmus Hall High School.

The wood-frame, clapboard Georgian-Federal style building, now “deteriorating steadily,” once housed classrooms, administrative offices, a library and a museum. It was closed in 2000.

According to the New York Landmarks Conservancy:

“[The Academy’s] history starts in Colonial New York when, in 1786, the Reverend John H. Livingston and Senator John Vanderbilt founded a private school on land donated by the nearby Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church. Leading citizens of that time, among them Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Peter Lefferts, and Robert Livingston, contributed funds for the construction of the Academy, which opened in 1787.

It became the first secondary school in the State to be chartered by the Board of Regents, rendering Erasmus the oldest secondary school in the state and one of the oldest in the country…[But] by the end of the 19th century, changes in demographics resulted in an enrollment decline at the private Academy and a new demand for a large public school to accommodate the growing immigrant population.”

Between 2011 and 2013, the Landmarks Conservancy worked with the office of former Borough President Marty Markowitz to secure a nonprofit user for the building but the effort was unsuccessful.

According to the petition, the City needs to act immediately to:

1. Perform emergency repairs to stop water penetration;
2. Identify an appropriate user for the building; and
3. Implement a process that will enable a new user to improve and tenant the building.

Groups that have signed on to the effort to save the Erasmus Academy Building include the Erasmus Hall High School Alumni Association, Friends of the Erasmus Academy Building, the Historic Districts Council, IMPACCT Brooklyn, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

Erasmus Hall High School is the alma mater for scores of nationally known figures, including Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Lainie Kazan, Beverly Sills, Barbara Stanwyck and Eli Wallach; writers Bernard Malamud and Mickey Spillane; and builder Sam Lefrak.