The Harlem Children's Street: School, Community and Spatial Ownership

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

J UL I A CABANAS

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET school, community and spatial owNership

JULIA CABANAS

downing college A design thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the M.Phil. in Architectural and Urban Design 2018-20.

ABSTRACT Children are often seen as ‘incapable’ individuals who cannot yet make responsible and meaningful contributions to society (Matthews, 2001, p.23). Many cities – including New York – have very few child-centred spaces adequately equipped to encourage children to become social, participating urban dwellers (ibid., p.50). Even in the institutions where they should be thriving – public schools – they are often anonymised under hyper-bureaucratic systems in vast, ‘shopping mall’ school buildings (Ancess and Allen, 2006, p.401). The most disadvantaged children, often from working-class minority families lacking in wealth and social mobility, are frequently side-lined. This research challenges the growing school segregation in New York with alternative typologies that give children ownership over their learning spaces. The school will be reconfigured to promote collaboration between families, communities and educators.

WITH THANKS TO:

My supervisor, Mary Ann Steane.

My design tutors, Ingrid Schröder, Aram Mooradian & James Pockson

This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.

WORD COUNT: Main Body - 5,000 / Bibliography - 1,903

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

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I GHETTOIZED CHILDHOOD

TERRITORIES

Social Mobility, Spatial Mobility The Concrete Playground Anonymity in American Schools

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2 ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

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3 THE CASE FOR THE STREET

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Pedagogical Philosophies School Design as Reform The Small School Movement

Street as Education Space Networks of Solidarity The School Without Walls

4 RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

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CONCLUSION + DISCUSSION

48

Childhood to Adulthood in New York The Dispersed School Model

Figure 1: Reclaiming the streets

INTRODUCTION

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Marginalised children of colour in a large metropolis like New York are doubly-disadvantaged. They are considered both unfledged minors and racial minorities in a segregated city. Without legal rights over space, i.e. the ability to buy and rent property (Childress, 2004, p.196), and with no say in urban-planning politics (Matthews, 2001, p.15), children sometimes resort to wandering left-over urban spaces with ‘nothing to do’ (ibid., p.81). This, on top of entrenched social and racial divisions in New York, leaves the poorest children with almost no autonomy. With few, if any, child-centred territories available, the school and home are two environments where children may have some spatial ownership (DuránNarucki, 2008, p.279). However, even these supposed childhood ‘havens’ are affected by societal bias.

The poorest families often lack social mobility, which limits school choice.

After-school clubs, extracurricular activities, and youth groups often prove too expensive for low-income parents. Additionally, the typical working-class home is commonly more crowded than that of affluent families (Ward, 1978, p.33). This means that minority and working-class children are disadvantaged in multiple aspects of their upbringing: they lack quality schooling (Jencks, 1966), social contact and domestic privacy (Ward, 1978, p.33). Parents often rely on the local school to provide their children with social engagements. However, schools in underperforming New York districts – such as Central Harlem – often do not quell, but amplify, a child’s sense of anonymity and unimportance (Ark, 2002, p.6).

Design-wise, ‘these schools hardly [meet] any sort of architectural ideal’ (Clapper, 2006, p.250) and often do not present themselves as welcoming civic buildings.

This essay proposes an alternative: can architecture connect the home, neighbourhood and school? Can a ‘community school’ – one that expands across the city as an inclusive children’s territory (Fig.1) – pave the way for effective educational reform and desegregation? Part one of this essay explores the rigid territoriality of some New York neighbourhoods and how this affects the planning and design of schools. Part two explores trends in alternative schooling in the West, and how new pedagogical philosophies that challenged America’s ‘factory’ school system developed (Neumann, 2003). Part three analyses the potential of the ‘community school’, and how streets and public spaces can be incorporated into a child’s wider education (Fig.2). These ideas will culminate in part 3

INTRODUCTION

four: the exploration of a new school typology for Harlem, The Dispersed School Model – a spatial reconfiguration of the child’s urban territory.

Figure 2: Street play (Henderson, 1949-56).

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Figure 3: Harlem public housing (Falk, 1965)

1GHETTOIZED CHILDHOOD TERRITORIES

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

SOCIAL MOBILITY, SPATIAL MOBILITY For generations New York has been shaped by immigration and the influx of different populations (Logan, Zhang and Alba, 2019, p.302). This ‘established pattern’ (ibid.) of multicultural mixing (and conversely, segregation) continues to influence the lives of many New Yorkers today.

Although the city is widely romanticised as the ‘Promised Land’ of opportunity, it often proves to be a harsh environment for the disadvantaged (ibid., p.300). A large metropolis can add ‘pressures, changes [and], competition’ to already struggling families (Power, 2007, p.1). Poorer residents are more likely to be excluded from ‘the economic mainstream of middle-class jobs’ (Anyon, 1997, p.4) and this can have a negative effect on all aspects of familial life including housing opportunities, education, and social capital.

It is important for a child to have a secure home environment to act as a base for their emotional and social growth (Christensen and O’Brien, 2003, p.4). However, the luxury of an ideal home is not always available to low-income families in New York, who often live in smaller, overcrowded accommodations where children may lack both the privacy of their own bedrooms and the flexibility of a back yard (Ward, 1978) (Fig.4). Given these spatial limitations, the home becomes predominantly an adult-controlled domain where children struggle to socialise and establish their own territories (Matthews, 2001, p.59).

Historically, Manhattan’s Black population was housed in the city’s outskirts, in ‘less attractive’ neighbourhoods such as Harlem and the Bronx (Osofsky, 1971, p.9) (Fig.3). Here, they occupied ghettoized tenements and anonymous high-rise housing blocks such as the Vladeck Houses in the Lower East Side (Fig.5-7). Famously, Jane Jacobs criticised these ‘super-block projects’ and blamed them for the alienation of New York’s youth (1961, p.76). For the child, who needs space to explore, play and make social interactions, the high-rise flat is unideal (Matthews, 2001, p.50). With upwardly-mobile families moving out of the inner-city, the Manhattan ‘projects’ became a ghettoized ‘no-man’s land’ devoid of community connection (Power, 2007, p.2). For financially-strained families, community support can be important for relieving some of the pressures of childcare (Barnes, 2007, p.112). Studies have shown that middle-class children are often more

7

GHETTOIZED CHILDHOOD TERRITORIES

confident at navigating new urban territories (Ward, 1978, p.27). Meanwhile, children from working-class minority families, such as Black and Latino children, have a more restricted mental map of their city (ibid.).

‘Oftentimes my students had not been exposed to experiences that I considered to be common. For example, a trip to a museum was met with resistance because of the preconceived notions of the students that they wouldn’t fit there. Excursions to the city were also foreign. Restaurants other than McDonald’s were odd.’

(Goodman, 1999, p.57)

As captured by Greg Goodman, some urban spaces are reserved for more affluent families by the unspoken law of social hierarchies. Therefore, sometimes even ‘child-friendly’ spaces, such as museums, can inadvertently exclude poorer families. As Anne Power puts it, for struggling families ‘the known [often] feels safer than the unknown’ (2007, p.112). Conversely, underprivileged parts of the neighbourhood may be perceived as unsafe and unattractive by those better-off (Osofsky, 1971), which further hardens the divisions between rich and poor, white and minority populations.

Figure 4: Cramped living spaces (Hodgson, 2018) 8

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Figure 5: Towers in the sky

Figure 6: Brownstone tenements 9

GHETTOIZED CHILDHOOD TERRITORIES

Figure 7: Manhattan projects (Arnold & Kellogg, 1940) 10

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

THE CONCRETE PLAYGROUND Children’s playgrounds are common in our cities. However, are they truly the best environments for play, exploration and social interaction? Some researchers argue that although playgrounds are common enough, they are often treated as an afterthought in urban planning, a ‘token space… [made] to fit into the alien environments of the adult world’ (Matthews, 2001, p.50). Others describe playgrounds as ‘urban islands’ sectioned off from the wider city with ‘walls, fences and hedges’ (Zeiher, 2003, pp.66– 67). Adults see children as simultaneously in danger and a danger: a solitary child roaming the streets is a potential victim, whereas a large group of children in the same setting may be seen as a threat (Power, 2007, p.85). Particular groups of minority teenagers ‘loitering’ in public spaces are frequently and unfairly stereotyped as dangerous by the police and paranoid locals (Childress, 2004, p.200). The fenced-off playground is a physical representation of this societal need to both protect and control young people.

Figure 8: New York’s basketball playgrounds (Favre, 2018) 11

GHETTOIZED CHILDHOOD TERRITORIES

Ironically, many playgrounds – spaces allocated for children – are not always the most child-friendly. Usually they are nothing more than ‘immense concrete slabs with several basketball rings’ (Clapper, 2006, p.50), occasionally dotted with climbing apparatus (Fig.8). Colin Ward argues that the spaces we remember from our childhoods are rarely these generic playgrounds. Instead, many children find unexplored, left-over spaces such as ‘the vacant lot, the secret places behind billboards or hoardings’ more exciting (Ward, 1978, p.87). Through a misconstrued understanding of what children want, playgrounds often lack adequate facilities to encourage invention, exploration and independence (Matthews, 2001, p.65). Instead, they are neat and isolated spaces that satisfy the adult world’s need for order (Rasmussen and Smidt, 2003, p.92).

With such prescriptive playgrounds, the city’s streets and backstage spaces become infinitely more interesting for a child (Jacobs, 1961, p.85). Jacobs argues that the streets, particularly those with pedestrian-friendly pavements, have the potential to be great childhood domains: blank canvases for ‘unspecialized play’ (ibid., p.8081). For the most marginalised children who may avoid (or be excluded from) certain spaces, the street remains a claimable territory.

ANONYMITY IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS In recent times, over half of America’s children from low-income households failed to graduate from high school (O’Donnell et al., 1995). Dropout rates are highest amongst Latino children, and both Latino and Black students are more likely to be behind in reading and mathematics (Ark, 2002, p.56). Within cities like New York, strict zoning laws can determine the location and construction of schools. Historically, school developments were a source of neighbourhood tension between Black and White parents (Rubinstein, 1970, p.28); working-class neighbourhoods were often left with underperforming schools. These schools were commonly built with ‘simple block construction…small windows, few entrances… and minimal grounds’ (Fig.10) whilst schools in middle-class neighbourhoods had a more pleasant, ‘campus-like’ configuration (Clapper, 2006, p.150). This differentiation in how schools present themselves to the wider public undermines genuine reform (ibid., p.259). The lack of design and care given to segregated schools sends a message that a substandard 12

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

learning environment, and in turn, education standard, is what some children deserve.

These schools’ interiors are not any better. Poor lighting, ventilation and acoustics have repeatedly been proven to have an adverse effect on student wellbeing and academic attainment (Woolner et al., 2007; DuránNarucki, 2008). However, the vast, factory-like school design continues to be the default in marginalised American neighbourhoods, Harlem included. Children find themselves in windowless classrooms, overcrowded double-loaded hallways, and under-maintained buildings (Clapper, 2006; Alonso, 2009) (Fig.9). Additionally, increased security measures at ‘high-risk’ schools, such as the introduction of ‘overly-durable architecture, giant chain-link fences, [and] locked gates’, have made them feel more like prisons than child-centred learning spaces (Upitis, 2004, p.21).

These environments can make children and staff feel increasingly unimportant, depleting their self-confidence and bolstering their perceived status as ‘second-class citizens’ (Giroux, 2014, p.492).

On average, teachers at overcrowded, underperforming public high schools can face 125 to 150 children a day (Ark, 2002, p.56). This means that even the best teachers will struggle to personally know all their students. For underprivileged children amongst whom the occurrence of mental health issues, loneliness, and familial stresses are statistically higher (Baldwin and Carruthers, 1998, p.1) this can have an amplified detrimental effect on their development. Schools are supposedly the most important environments for children after the home (Durán-Narucki, 2008, p.279). Low-income parents often rely on schools to provide additional pastoral support, but not all educators have the resources to do so (Power, 2007, p.113). Arguably, what these families and schools need is a network of support from their wider community.

Figure 9: Double-loaded hallway (InsideSchools.org, n.d.)

Figure 5: New York’s basketball playgrounds (Favre, 2018) 13

1 P.S. 154 HARRIET TUBMAN SCHOOL

3

2

P.S. 242 THE YOUNG DIPLOMATS MAGNET ACADEMY

P.S. 79 HORAN SCHOOL

4 P.S. 149 SORJOUNER TRUTH

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P.S. 208 ALAIN LOCKE

Figure 6:

Figure 10: Harlem’s ‘bunker’ schools 14

Figure 11: Bussing students in Harlem (Manning, 1964)

2ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

PEDAGOGICAL PHILOSOPHIES School environments have been problematic for decades. Before the pivotal Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 19541, it was already clear that Black and minority children were receiving a substandard education in obsolete school buildings (Ogletree Jr., 2004). The 1960s was a decade of political dissent throughout America. Civil-Rights-related protests – from calls for housing equality to race riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination (Kluger, 1977, p.762) – were prevalent. In the meantime, widespread support for anti-poverty, anti-war and social justice discourse started to influence change (Adams, 1991, p.49). Additionally, culture, arts and literature expressed discontent with the traditional ‘American Dream’ lifestyle, romanticising alternatives involving self-discovery and exploration (Neumann, 2003). This nation-wide atmosphere spurred activists and reformers to challenge the ‘outdated’ institutions of American society, the public-school included.

The Civil Rights Movement was important in the development of educational reform; activists believed that a good education could liberate African American children from de facto segregation (Fig.12). They set up ‘freedom schools’ as alternatives to public education (Neumann, 2003, p.73). New pedagogical philosophies stemmed from a belief that societal issues, such as race and class divisions, could at least in part, be addressed through education. The homogeneous ‘factory model for learning’ (Upitis, 2004, p.20) and rigid, hyper-bureaucratic American school systems fell under criticism, and more democratic, child-centred frameworks emerged. Psychologists such as John Dewey and Jean Piaget introduced more humanistic pedagogical approaches, with both believing that a child should be given more autonomy over his or her schooling (Neumann, 2003). Piaget suggests that children are not passive occupants of an adult-centred world, but active participators; they are individuals capable of becoming sophisticated and creative thinkers given the right environment (Meier, 1995, p.47).

1 | The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling of 1954 stated that ‘separate but equal’ education was unconstitutional, paving the way for school desegregation (Kluger, 1977; Martin Jr., 1991).

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ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

Figure 12: Protesting for integration (Burns, 1964)

SCHOOL DESIGN AS REFORM American school reform since Brown v. Board has focused predominantly on policy. These included controversial bussing initiatives (Delmont, 2016) (Fig.11), the pairing of schools (Lau, 2004), centralisation, standardisation and funding schemes to improve academic attainment (Kozol, 2005). However, school design was often a peripheral issue for policy-makers. This attitude is beginning to change. The need for collaboration between architects and educators has become increasingly apparent as research into the effect of the physical environment on student performance and wellbeing gains momentum (Durรกn-Narucki, 2008). Some argue that without altering the physical state of public schools, true reform cannot happen: the status of disadvantaged children will remain precarious if they continue to occupy undignified spaces (Upitis, 2004, p.34; Clapper, 2006, p.259).

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THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Worldwide, there have been developments in school design that aim to challenge the traditional ‘factory school’ typology. In the Twentieth Century, these ideas focused predominantly on bettering environmental conditions such as ventilation, acoustics and light quality (Woolner, 2007).

‘Open-air’ schools took prominence in Europe in countries like the UK, The Netherlands and France (The Gale Group Inc., 2004) (Fig.13), whilst in America flexible ‘open-plan’ schools were deemed a suitable solution (Woolner, 2007, p.53-54). However, few architects made it their focus to improve schools by articulating educational philosophies through design. David and Mary Medd were an exception. The Medds attempted to find architectural expression for pedagogical theories, using design to encourage complex interactions and activities in schools (Franklin, 2012, p.336). This approach, known as ‘built-in variety’, gave children a degree of control and choice by providing them with contrasting spaces: big and small, open and private, inside and outside (ibid., p.339) (Fig.14). Although some architects disagreed with the Medds’ approach of purposely designing variety into school environments, e.g. Herman Hertzberger who values spatial clarity and discipline (Dyer, 2016), their influence on child-centred design was significant (Franklin, 2012, p.360).

The Medds contributed to a growing belief that architecture can facilitate school reform. Several decades ago, Scandinavian architects attempted to decentralise public schools by designing spaces that encouraged flexible learning and teamwork (Upitis, 2004, p.32). In the UK, Building Schools for the Future, a government-funded initiative, emphasised the importance of well-designed school buildings (Leiringer and Cardellino, 2011, p.916). In New York City, where alternative schooling methods are already prevalent, perhaps now is the moment for design-led reform.

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ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

FigureFigure 13: Open-air x: schools (No author, 1912) 20

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Figure 14: ‘Built-in variety’, The Medds (Barron, 1949-50) 21

ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

THE SMALL SCHOOL MOVEMENT ‘Face-to-face meeting places such as political clubs, union halls, and settlement houses have all but disappeared. These were not only places of nurturance, but places where we learned skills, felt safe enough to take needed risks, learned to believe in the future. Only schools remain.’

(Meier, 1995, pp.9–10)

The ‘small school movement’ was a new pedagogy that emerged from the mid-century rise of alternative schooling. Spearheaded by Deborah Meier and first tested at the Central Park East School in East Harlem, the movement advocated the benefits of smaller school communities where children feel less anonymous and disconnected (Meier, 1995). To create a stronger sense of belonging there has to be a level of trust, familiarity and ‘human connection’ within an environment (Raywind, 1998, p.35; Power, 2007, p.44). In larger schools with upwards of 1,000 children, it is difficult to achieve this level of intimacy.

Meier argues that small schools provide a suitable environment for children to feel safe enough to take risks, ask questions and think creatively.

Risk-taking is an important part of childhood development and learning.

Another strength of this typology is the increased level of contact between educators and children; in environments where teachers know students by name, there is a stronger sense of belonging. It has been shown that in small schools, instances of vandalism and antisocial behaviour are rare because children feel like they have more ownership and pride over the spaces their occupy (Meier, 1995, p.36). Small schools may also make administrative tasks more manageable, allowing teachers and principals to work closer together under a more ‘collegial’ arrangement (Hargreaves, 2006, p.34).

The influence of the ‘small school’ movement has been ‘sweeping the nation’ in America, and since Meier established her Harlem school, there are now over 175 schools in New York that follow her example (Ancess and Allen, 2006, p.401). A direct challenge against traditional systems, the movement has affected not just school policy but also physical form (Fig.16). However, even Meier herself cannot deny that the attractiveness of the big American high school remains. Established sports teams, larger social circles and the variety of after-school clubs can provide exciting 22

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

new experiences for maturing children (Meier, 1995, pp.31–32). Arguably, large high schools carry more authority in a neighbourhood, whereas smaller schools may not hold the same certainty (Barker and Gump, 1964, p.195). Although the benefits of the ‘small school’ movement have repeatedly been demonstrated, some educators like Jonathan Kozol have warned against treating it as the ‘miracle solution’ for New York’s education problems (Ancess and Allen, 2006, p.414). Recently, small schools with subject-specific curriculums have appeared across the city. Artsthemed institutions have grown popular amongst white middle-class families, whilst vocational, industry-focused schools have become associated with lower-income minority families (ibid.). School segregation is still a problem in New York, just in a different form (Fig.15).

BLACK CAUCASIAN LATINO ASIAN WORST PUBLIC SCHOOLS BEST PUBLIC SCHOOLS BEST PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Figure 15 + 16: Existing school segregation | One-room schoolhouse

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ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

Figure x: 10

Figure 17: Street encounters (Burns, 1964)

3THE CASE FOR THE STREET

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

STREET AS EDUCATION SPACE The previous chapters have discussed two key themes: (1) the lack of dedicated spatial territories for inner-city children (2) the emergence of new pedagogies and their influence on school policy and design. This section argues that the integration of school and city is central to a child’s development; and that this could potentially be achieved by introducing the street into the school territory and vice versa. Not only is the street an exciting alternative play space (as explored in Chapter 1), it is also where urban-dwellers, regardless of class, race, and background, interact with each other. Public streets are where people are confronted with the city’s ‘throwntogetherness’, a space where the ‘multiplicity’ of society can be fully experienced (Massey, 2005).

On the street, children can practice ‘social competencies’ and ‘enact and perform their growing maturity’ away from the safety of the home (Christensen and O’Brien, 2003, p.6). Hugh Matthews argues that by encountering other citizens in the public realm, children can observe and mimic responsible behaviour (2001, p.73) (Fig.17). He goes on to state that this sort of development relies on practice and experience and cannot happen in isolated ‘childhood ghettoes’ (ibid.). This attitude echoes that of Jacobs who believed that children learn how to be responsible by ‘imitating adult attitudes’ in public (1961, pp.82–83). As children grow older, the street can become a ‘social forum’ (Matthews, 2001) (Fig.18), it is here that they meet with friends and strengthen relationships.

Schools are semi-public childhood realms. Here, children interact with peers from different backgrounds daily. However, the school is still an adult-supervised world where freedom to inhabit space, form social cliques, and negotiate relationships is controlled. Arguably, only when children can step beyond the boundaries of home and school to begin to participate in adult life and make their own choices, can they begin to acquire a greater degree of social maturity.

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THE CASE FOR THE STREET

Figure 18: Bodega on street corner

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THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

HOUSING PROJECTS

HIGHWAYS

Figure 19: New York’s highways

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RAILWAYS

KEY STREETS

THE CASE FOR THE STREET

NETWORKS OF SOLIDARITY2 One of the criticisms of traditional school systems is the dominance of educators over the family; the attitude of ‘teachers know best’ means that parents are given limited say over school matters (Hargreaves, 2006, p.34).

Yet research shows that fluid communication between home, school and neighbourhood is important for a child’s upbringing. With centralised and overly-bureaucratic systems excluding parents from the school community, disadvantaged families are at risk of losing an important social anchor (Meier, 1995, p.7). This isolation is amplified by urban gentrification, and the cyclical influx and outflux of residents undermining the structure of the neighbourhood network (Power, 2007, p.140).

As discussed in Chapter 1, low-income families are segregated partly because of their limited social mobility in the city. Without pedestrianised, family-friendly streets, this segregation is exacerbated. Whilst streets can connect public spaces together, they can also be used to divide territories. Many housing projects in New York for example, are bordered with multi-lane highways that physically isolate residents from more affluent neighbourhood quarters (Schindler, 2015) (Fig.19). Busy streets create hostile conditions that can often deter parents and children from using parks or community facilities (Power, 2007, p.59). Jacobs argues that the safest streets are the ones passively supervised by surrounding buildings and with wide pavements that provide ample space for a variety of activities (1961). The street is a common ‘hang out’ space for young people (Power, 2007, p.85) but also an essential urban artery. Whilst parks, shops, schools, libraries, bodegas and many other settings shape New York’s social network (Fig.21), it is well-maintained and pedestrianised streets that help make these spaces more accessible to all.

2 | A term coined by Vicky Cattell (2001) as noted in Down Our Way (Barnes, 2007).

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Figure x: 9

THE CASE FOR THE STREET

THE SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS Of course, one of the most important neighbourhood institutions is the public school. Whilst some schools can afford a central location in affluent districts – for example Avenues: The World School in Chelsea, Manhattan, which has direct access to The High Line (Levin, 2016) – most schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods are less well-connected.

Few precedents have truly tested the potential of a community school.

Some initiatives such as Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone (Tough, 2004) and Mayor de Blasio’s Community Schools programme (Office of the Mayor, 2015) emphasise the importance of connecting Harlem’s schools with the wider community. Rarely however, is this concept spatially realised. Ward (1978) highlights a couple of exceptions: Parkway Education Program in Philadelphia and the City College proposal by George Haigh.

Both schools have utilised existing urban facilities as venues for education. The ‘Art Museum…the Library, the Fire Station, the University’ became learning spaces for children (ibid., p.177-180). Neither school had a centralised building, but headquarters and home classrooms were dotted around the city. The educators at Parkway claimed that this arrangement engaged students with the community and allowed locals to directly contribute to the education of their children.

These two examples are perhaps the more radical interpretations of the benefits of community-connected schools. However, community engagement is a recurrent theme in education reform discourse and features strongly in the design aspect of this research (Fig.20-22).

Figure 20: Community-integrated school 32

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Figure 21: Neighbourhood network 33

THE CASE FOR THE STREET

COMMUNITY

SMALL CLASSES

PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE

CONTINUITY

FAMILY

NUTRITION

OUTDOOR SPACE

CHALLENGE

COLLABORATION

Figure 22: Student needs 34

Figure 23: City as child’s territory (Davidson, 1966)

4RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

CHILDHOOD TO ADULTHOOD IN NEW YORK The previous chapters have highlighted the importance of the home, community, and street in a child’s education and upbringing. These ideas culminate in a design framework that aims to appropriately introduce children to the metropolis of New York City by integrating the school with its urban surroundings. This project argues that child-centred territories can encourage independence and social maturity and should be better articulated in school design.

The designs for a Pre-K and elementary school, middle school and high school (Fig.24-26), propose school territories that expand and grow in complexity at each learning stage. The Pre-K and elementary school (Fig.24), for children aged 3 to 10, is compact, tucked between residential buildings and utilises the interior of a Harlem block. Accessed through discrete entrances and passively surveilled by surrounding brownstones, the school is secured without the need for tall fences and gates. Highspeed traffic is particularly dangerous for young children; therefore, it was important to locate the school on a quiet residential block. Pre-teen children develop a more sophisticated understanding of space – what Piaget calls the ‘concrete operational’ stage (Ward, 1978, p.24) – and can navigate through more complex neighbourhood areas. For the middle school therefore, the child’s territory expands beyond the boundary of one urban block (Fig.25), increasing exposure to the surrounding city. By the time children start high school, their need for socialisation dominates and ‘becomes overwhelming’ (Power, 2007, p.85). Addressing this, the high school design places some facilities at more prominent urban locations – in this example, a street intersection (Fig.26) – where children can socialise and exercise greater freedom. It is important to provide teenagers, who are seeking a way between childhood and adulthood, with territories where they can negotiate their identities in relation to the city (Fig.23).

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RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Figure 24: Elementary School 38

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Figure 25: Middle School 39

RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Figure 26: High School 40

THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S STREET

Figure 27: Dining room

THE DISPERSED SCHOOL MODEL Whilst the ‘incremental exposure’ strategy above provides a new framework deployable in any city, it was also important to investigate a school proposal that responds more directly to Harlem itself. The issue of segregation is particularly acute in Harlem where some of Manhattan’s worst-performing schools are located (Taylor, 2017). Early design tests (Fig.29) propose a school typology aiming to unite different neighbourhood quarters by infiltrating urban blocks with educational facilities. This reconfigures the strict boundaries of New York’s school districts and challenges the existing design of Harlem’s ‘factory’ schools. The idea is to provide children with their own urban territories and to make physical connections with existing community facilities. The school’s ‘fragmented’ architecture aims to integrate the buildings with the existing urban grain (Fig.31), encouraging moments of both ‘human connection’ (Raywind, 1998, p.35) and more public interactions with the wider neighbourhood.

Harlem has very few high-performing public middle schools, a more developed design (Fig.30) that builds on the ideas outlined above, tries to address this. From ages 10 to 13, children develop a stronger need for 41

RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Figure 28: Learning space

socialisation and independence. This proposal provides children with a range of spaces that allow for varying levels of neighbourhood interaction. Teaching classrooms are more private and have views into existing courtyards (Fig.28); semi-public spaces such as the dining room have large street-facing windows but are not publicly accessible (Fig.27); the auditorium has a stronger civic presence and doubles as a community space. Bridging the gap between elementary and high school, the middle school needs to provide children with a degree of exposure to the city. For parts of the day, they will need to cross streets to get to class, and for others they remain in supervised classroom settings. After hours, the school becomes a venue for extra-curricular activities. The auditorium is public, and the community hall is open for neighbourhood use.

This school typology aims to challenge the generic design of Harlem’s public schools. Instead of monolithic concrete walls facing the street, the school’s architecture is more fragmented – at times expressing itself fully as a civic façade, and at other moments blending in with the surrounding terraces. The school’s weaving footprint across the neighbourhood unites families previously segregated by school zoning laws and breaks the territoriality of the Manhattan block.

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Figure 29: The Dispersed Harlem School 43

RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

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AUDITORIUM HALL

GATEHOUSE

STAFF

DINING ROOM

CLASSROOMS CLASSROOMS

LIBRARY

CLASSROOMS

Figure x: XXXXX 41

SPORTS HALL

RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

FigureFigure 30 + 31: x: Harlem Middle School | Fragmented street frontage 40 46

Figure 32: A child encounters the adult world (Morath, 1958)

CONCLUSION + DISCUSSION

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The design aspect of this research was a response to the lack of child-centred territories in the city; the child’s heteronomy in public affairs; and the continued segregation in public-school systems. The design proposal is a reconfiguration of the school typology that aims not only to expand children’s urban territories, but also to disperse and downscale school facilities to create a less anonymising environment. This approach combines several theories explored in the first three chapters, drawing elements from Meier’s ‘small school’ programme’, the Medds’ ‘built-in variety’ designs, the community-focused ‘school without walls’ precedents, and Piaget’s theory on the child’s inherent creativity and curiosity. It is also important for the school to address the racial and social segregation of New York’s education system. Drawing important lessons from literature on urban territoriality and the vulnerability of low-income families, the proposed typology encourages, and does not deter, familial involvement.

Some parts of the school are therefore used as community venues after hours. Its dispersed structure means ownership over the school territory is shared (Fig.34).

Of course, this proposal has its limitations. High-speed traffic in New York is a real concern (Ward, 1978, p.116): is it safe for children to be wandering the streets during the school day? Designing for security also requires further exploration, particularly with America’s history of gun-related violence on school campuses and the threat of crime in some New York districts. Whilst a decentralised and permeable school may be beneficial for community engagement, can it also put children in dangerous situations? The proposals above assume that New York’s neighbourhoods still have the community cohesion that Jacobs celebrates – a city where there are familiar faces and a collective responsibility over other people’s children (1961). However, times have changed. New York is more diverse; globalisation has meant that neighbourhood demographics are constantly changing and ‘community spirit’ and street life are arguably on the decline as children turn to technology and ‘virtual spaces’ to socialise and play (Ward, 1978; Childress, 2004; Power, 2007).

This essay identifies some of the key issues that not only Harlem’s children, but children in cities worldwide, face. The Dispersed School Model has its limitations, particularly when addressing issues such as racial division and territoriality in New York City. However, it does propose a provocative alternative to the current ‘bunker’ architecture of Harlem’s 49

CONCLUSION + DISCUSSION

schools. It trusts that a spatial and design-led approach can be used to drive educational reform, positing that every child has a right to territory in the city (Fig.32-33).

Figure 33: Breaking the block 50

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Figure x: XXXXX 39

RECONFIGURING THE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Figure x: XXXXX

Figure 34: Neighbourhood school 40

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ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Author’s own image Figure 2: Henderson, N. (1949-54) Photograph of children playing outside. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/ items/tga-201011-3-1-132-9/henderson-photograph-showing-children-playing-on-chisenhale-road-london Figure 3: Falk, S. (1965) Public housing in Harlem in 1965. By this time, a carefully selected tenancy of black and Puerto Rican residents accounted for the majority of public housing families. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.nytimes. com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/new-york-city-public-housing-history.html Figure 4: Hodgson, S. (2018) Patricia Elcock, 59, used an open over to heat the apartment she shares with her grandson Michael this winter. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/newyork-city-public-housing-history.html Figure 5: Author’s own image Figure 6: Author’s own image Figure 7: Arnold & Kellogg. (1940) The Vladeck Houses, built in 1940 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, were a series of six-story plain brick buildings with generous open spaces. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/new-york-city-public-housing-history.html Figure 8: Favre, L. (2018) New York Basketball Courts. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.ludwigfavre.com/portfolio_page/new-york-basketball-courts/ Figure 9: InsideSchools.org (n.d.) P.S. 208 Alain L. Locke. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://insideschools.org/school/03M208 Figure 10: Author’s own image and photographs of schools. Retrieved March 8, 2019 from https://www.google.com/maps Figure 11: Manning, J. (1964) Students from P.S. 168 in East Harlem after being bused to P.S. 6 on the Upper East Side. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https:// www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html Figure 12: Burns, P. A. (1964) The headquarters of the Citywide Committee for Integration at a church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Today, the same neighborhood is home to a growing movement of black parents who have embraced Afrocentric schools as an alternative to integrated schools. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https:// www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html Figure 13: No author (1912) Children lying on cots during a rest period at an open air 53

ILLUSTRATIONS

school in Rochester, New York. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4795438/Photos-Britain-used-FRESH-AIRhalt-TB-crisis.html Figure 14: Barron, D. (1949-50) Aboyne Lodge Infants’ School, St Albans, Hertfordshire. in Franklin, G. (2012) “Built-in Variety”: David and Mary Medd and the Child-Centred Primary School, 1944-80’, Architectural History, 55, pp. 332. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43489724 [Drawing] Retrieved April 1, 2019.

Figure 15: Author’s own image Figure 16: Author’s own image Figure 17: Burns, P. A. (1964) White families from P.S. 92 in Corona, Queens, passed black families from P.S. 149 in Jackson Heights, just a few blocks away. The two schools were paired, meaning students from each school were sent to their sister school in order to foster integration. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html Figure 18: Author’s own image Figure 19: Author’s own image Figure 20: Author’s own image Figure 21: Author’s own image Figure 22: Author’s own image Figure 23: Davidson, B. (1966) East 100th Street. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://pro.magnumphotos.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO2FSCATE&SMLS=1&RW=1285&RH=764&PN=1#/SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO2FSCATE&SMLS=1&RW=1285&RH=764&PN=2 Figure 24: Author’s own image Figure 25: Author’s own image Figure 26: Author’s own image Figure 27: Author’s own image Figure 28: Author’s own image Figure 29: Author’s own image Figure 30: Author’s own image Figure 31: Author’s own image 54

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Figure 32: Morath, I. (1958). Madison Avenue shop window. [Photograph] Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://pro.magnumphotos.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO2FSCATE&SMLS=1&RW=1285&RH=764&PN=1#/SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO2FSCATE&SMLS=1&RW=1285&RH=764&PN=7 Figure 33: Author’s own image Figure 34: Author’s own image

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