Independence High School (New York City, New York)

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4-story school completed in 1924 as an office and shipping facility. Designed by A. G. Carlson & Harrison G. Wiseman, it was first converted to a school as the West Manhattan Outreach Center, later renamed Independence High School. It operates as a transfer alternative school designed for older students who have been unsuccessful in other schools.

It is clad in red brick, painted white and grey on the tall ground floor. The main entrance is at the center of the west facade on the avenue, where the street slopes to the south. The entry has recessed double-doors atop a set of steps, framed in black-painted stone. To the immediate left is a large opening with glass blocks and a metal vent in the upper-left corner. Farther north there is a glass door with a high window next to it for a commercial space, occupied by Sync Sound studio. Continuing north there is a metal service door below two small, square windows, and there are two more small, square windows with glass blocks at the north end. The south end has two large openings filled by glass blocks. At the 2nd floor there is a narrow window above the main entrance. To the north are three large bays with glass blocks, with small square windows set into the center, followed by another bay with regular windows, and an end bay with paired, tall, narrow windows. There are four large bays to the south, but the one closest to the center has been bricked-in. The other three have triple-windows, and there is a narrow, small window inserted between two of the bays. The 3rd & 4th floors have single-windows above the entrance; there are five bays of paired windows to the north (with a single-window at the 4th-floor north end bay), and four bays of paired windows to the south (with one half of the pair bricked-in at the closest bay to the middle). There is a brick roof parapet with a stone coping, stepped up in three places.

The ground floor on the north facade on 56th Street has two bays with metal secondary doors at the east end. To the right is a set of glass double-doors under a metal canopy and two bays of single-windows with glass blocks, followed by another metal service door. The west end has two more narrow openings with glass blocks. The 2nd floor has three tall windows at the east end (with the bottom portion of the western one bricked-up), followed by five large bays of triple-windows separated by grey-brown metal mullions. The upper floors have separate groups of three smaller windows in each bay, with stone sills and brick lintels. The roof line has another brick parapet and stone coping, stepped up the center.

The ground floor on the south facade on 55th Street grows shorter to the east, following the slope of the site. At the west end it has two wide bays of glass blocks (with a low set of service doors below the end bay), followed by a thinner, vertical bay of metal louvers, and then another bay of glass blocks. Near the center are two more wide bays of glass blocks and a narrower bay of glass blocks. The east end has two narrower bays of glass blocks, a recessed metal door, two more bays of glass blocks (along with some smaller, square openings that are now bricked-in), and a recessed metal service door at the far east end. The 2nd floor again has large bays of triple-windows or four narrower windows, for 13 total bays - the exceptions are the 2nd bay from the west, which has a low horizontal opening with glass blocks, and the 3rd bay, which has metal louvers. At the west end, the 3rd & 4th floors have bays of paired windows for the first six bays. The east part of the facade has the top two floors joined into one tall story, with much taller paired windows.

hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015034804636?urlappend=%3Bseq...