The Professional Performing Arts School (New York City, New York)

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5-story Beaux-Arts school building completed in 1908, when it opened as PS 17. That school moved to the Bronx in 1989, and the building now houses both the PS 212 Midtown West school, a K-5 grade school established in 1991, and The Professional Performing Arts School or PPAS. The Professional Performing Arts School was created in 1990 to meet the needs of two groups of students: those who wanted to pursue professional work in the arts as they earned a junior/senior high school diploma and those who wanted to study the arts as a vocation.

The building is H-shaped in plan, with a wide but shallow courtyard between two wings on the north side on 48th Street, and a much deeper courtyard between the wings on 47th Street; both courtyards are raised up from the street, with broad steps accessing them, behind wrought-iron fencing. The main north facade is clad in dark-brown brick with limestone trim above a rusticated limestone base. The recessed middle section is organized into three bays, with the main entrance in the center bay, which projects out at the ground floor. The green-painted wooden double-doors have a pair of 2-over-2 transoms above, set within a segmental-arch with an elaborately carved, green-colored molding. A bronze plaque above the arch\\\\\\\'s keystone bears the number 17 flanked by the words \\\\\\\"PUBLIC\\\\\\\" and \\\\\\\"SCHOOL\\\\\\\". This bay is topped by a cornice with dentils and large modillions, surmounted by a cartouche embellished with a swag across the middle, and flowers and other foliate ornament at the sides. Blind balusters extend out to a base on each end, with additional carved ornament.

The two bays flanking the center bays, as well as the sideways bays facing the courtyard, and the end bays on the wings, all have pairs of round-arched windows with keystones; at the side-facing walls the arched top parts are separated from the windows below by stone spandrels. Just outside of the center entrance bay, there are large and elaborate bronze medallions next to the inner windows of the flanking bays. A simple band course caps the rest of the ground floor, except for at the two bays flanking the center bay, where there are stone balconies carried on large console brackets and topped by green iron railings with gold-colored pendant ornaments.

At the upper floors the three recessed middle bays have 3-store stone moldings ending in segmental-arches with keystones at the 4th floor; these are separated at the 2nd floor by tall vent openings with splayed brick headers, covered by green iron grilles. Above these, at the 3rd floor, are tall signs, one for each of the school in the building. Each of the arch sections encompasses a multi-paned tripartite window on each floor, divided by green metal mullions, and by green metal paneled spandrels between floors. The wings have pairs of segmental-arched windows with brick lintels and limestone keystones at the 2nd & 3rd floors. The north-facing walls also have small, vertical slit windows at the ends. The 4th floor of the wings has triple-windows in stone surrounds, with stone band courses at the base and another at the top, joining with the projecting modillioned cornice that runs all the way along the facade. The top floor consists of limestone cladding punctuated by three triple-windows in the middle section, with a metal mansard roof above and behind. The three window groups have console brackets at the upper corners, framing rounded pediments filled by cartouches, swags, and other foliate ornament.

The south facade on 47th Street matches the north facade at the three middle bays, which are much more deeply recessed behind a raised courtyard. The inward-facing walls of the wings framing the courtyard have four bays that match the middle bays, and a narrower bay 2nd-from-the-south that single segmental-arched windows with keystones at the 2nd & 3rd floors, and a square-headed window in a stone surround at the 4th. The south-facing bays at the ends of the wings also match the middle bays at the 2nd-4th floors. At the ground floor they have large a round-arched window flanked by two small, narrow windows. Below the round-arched window are green doors. Inward from the end wings there are large segmental-arched basement windows, and in the center there is a staircase with steps leading up from either side and then back to reach the raised courtyard. The stairway has green iron fencing, which also extends in either directions to the ends of the building.

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