Bayard Rustin Educational Complex (New York City, New York)

 school, Gothic revival (architecture), New Deal Depression Relief Project [1933-1945]

157-foot, 8-story Neo-Gothic school building completed in 1929. Designed by Walter C. Martin as the Straubenmuller Textile High School. The building has two main sections, fronting West 18th & 19th Streets,with a connecting tower in the center. The longer south facades has a 1-story limestone base, climbing to two stories at the 18th Street entrance, and three stories on the far east side, with Gothic peaked pinnacles along the 2nd floor piers. The western end projects out, with a segmental-arched entryway. The upper floors are clad in beige brick, mostly with large groupings of four windows. A stone band course runs across the top of the 6th floor, with round-arched windows in pairs on the 7th floor.

In addition to a pair of stained glass windows by Gerard Recke, the building contains several large WPA Federal Arts Project murals created by various New Deal artists in 1934-36. In the lobby, renowned muralist Jean Charlot, a friend of Diego Rivera’s, oversaw the work of students– including Abraham Lishinsky–titled "The Art Contribution to Civilization of All Nations and Countries”. These murals, depicting scenes from civilizations ranging from Ancient Egypt to 20th century America, still decorate all four walls of the lobby today, covering 500 square feet. The school’s auditorium contains another set of murals by artist Geoffrey Norman.

The northern facade on 19th Street is more reserved, with a long row of large segmental-arched windows on the stone ground floor. The upper floor are clad in the same beige brick, with large window grouping in fours. In the center, the facade ends at the 6th floor, with a taller tower on either end. The original upper floors were well-appointed, with marble-lined hallways, stained glass windows, and wood-paneled offices.

Presently called the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, it is a "vertical campus" of the New York City Department of Education which contains a number of small public schools, most of them high schools — grades 9 through 12 – along with one middle school – grades 6 through 8. The building was formerly Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities, a comprehensive school which graduated its last class in the 2011-2012 school year. Its original use was as the Straubenmuller Textile High School, a vocational high school for the textile trades, complete with a textile mill in the basement. It was later renamed the Charles Evans Hughes High School.

The school shut down in 1981, and then re-opened in 1983 as the High School for the Humanities with a revamped curriculum focusing on English and the humanities. It was named for civil rights activist Bayard Rustin shortly thereafter.

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