STATEN ISLAND, NY – Curtis High School, at 105 Hamilton Avenue in St. George, is Staten Island history itself.
Opened in 1904, Curtis was Staten Island’s first public high school.
It was also the first public building completed of the planned borough created by Staten Island’s consolidation with New York City in 1898.
Additions were made to the Curtis building throughout the 1920s. The new gym wing was completed in 1937.
The school, with an initial student capacity of 750, was named after George William Curtis, an abolitionist, lecturer and essayist who was editor of Putnam Magazine and Harper’s Weekly.
Curtis was also a colleague and friend of the pioneering American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, a Staten Islander who designed Central Park.
Commissioned by Charles BJ Snyder, Curtis High School’s original brick and limestone building, with its square center tower, is an example of Neo-Gothic architecture. It was designated a New York City Landmark in 1982.
Snyder, who served as superintendent of city school buildings from 1891 to 1922, believed schools should be “civic monuments to a better society” and oversaw the construction of more than 350 city schools during his tenure.
The schools were designed to offer “light, air, beauty and dignity” during a period when waves of immigrant children were pouring into the city’s school system.
Curtis boasts a number of notable alumni, including war hero Pastor Vincent Capodanno and Pvt. Joseph Merrill; Watergate figure Jeb Stuart Magruder; former Borough President Ralph Lamberti; Wu-Tang Clan Leader RZA; Blue Oyster Cult guitarist Richie Castellano; socialite and writer Amy Vanderbilt; MLB stars Bobby Thomson, Terry Crowley and Anthony Varvaro, and island football legend Andrew Barberi.
Do you see yourself or anyone you recognize in these vintage photographs from the illustrious history of Curtis High School?
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