High School Of Graphic Communication Arts

 school, 1958_construction, Modern (architecture)

7-story International Style school completed in 1958. Designed by Kelly & Gruzen, the High School of Graphic Communication Arts (also referred to as H.S.G.C.A.) is a vocational high school located in the Hell's Kitchen (also known as Clinton) district of Manhattan. Founded in 1925 as the New York School of Printing, the school serves to educate students interesting in careers in printing, photography, journalism, the visual arts, and law enforcement (mainly forensics drawing).

The long, main bulk of the building runs along 50th Street, with a contrasting, smaller and shorter wing extending south to 49th Street near the west end. This wing is clad in light-grey brick with rounded corners that bulge out slightly, above a ground floor of metal and glass. The south-facing wall is covered by a colorful mosaic mural by Hans Hofmann, one of the leading artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement. To the east is a plaza and walkway leading back to the main building section. At the far west end is a 2-story section, also clad in brick, that is slightly recessed behind the southwest corner of the wing. At the ground floor it has a loading dock and a wide set of steps leading up to a pair of openings, one with a gate and the other with a metal roll-down door. The 2nd floor has a narrow band of windows along the top edge. To the east, the main part of the south wing has four small, square windows at the 2nd floor, with no other openings.

The main wing on 50th Street is clad in muted, grey glass blocks with thin bands of grey-metal-framed windows, and horizontal metal bands between floors. It is divided into 40 bays, each with two windows. In a few of the bays, the windows are slightly taller, and many have protruding air-conditioning units mounted in them. The ground floor is organized into 20 wider bays, with beige brick infill and bands of four short windows across the top of each bay, divided by grey metal piers; the ground-floor bays are recessed between the piers. The 3rd bay from the east has triple, blue metal doors, and the next bay has a single red-metal door. The 7th bay from the east has a single blue-metal door, and the 10th-13th bays from the east are more deeply recessed, with a wide, black stone set of steps fronted by an iron gate between the piers; there are blue metal doors at the rear wall of the two end bays of this section. The 3rd bay from the west has triple blue-metal doors. The south-facing facade of the main building section is clad in the same curtain wall of glass blocks, windows, and metal framing.