Park West Educational Campus

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5-story school completed in 1977. Designed by Max O. Urbahn, it occupies the whole middle of the block between 50th & 51st Streets. Park West High School had a terrible reputation for crime and violence, and was closed in 2006. The building was renamed Park West Educational Campus, and now houses a number of specialized schools, including Facing History High School, Manhattan Bridges High School (serving immigrants recently arrived from Spanish speaking countries), Food and Finance High School (designed to teach students both cooking skills and the business side of food preparation), High School of Hospitality Management, and Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction. The small schools take turns using the shared cafeterias, gyms, auditorium and library.

The facades are clad mostly in orange brick above a beige-painted concrete ground floor. There is a taller 5-story section at the far west end, with no openings at the ground floor. On the south facade on 50th Street it has a thin window band at the 2nd floor, while the 3rd & 4th floors have a taller 4-over-2 window on the left, and more thin windows on the right, and the top floor has a longer thin window band, all with red metal framing. To the east is a recessed area with a 4-story engaged cylinder of reddish-orange painted concrete, with a thin, vertical window at each floor. Next to it is a farther-recessed area at the lower two floors with an entrance of two sets of red metal double-doors with round glass panes, and a window band at the 2nd floor. The east wall of this recessed area is angled and painted with a geometric tile mosaic mural of primary colors. On the 3rd & 4th floors are window bands with 4 and 6 panes, with two much thinner bands at the 5th floor. Continuing east are two more such bays, in reverse, and then the roof line drops down with the rest of the facade standing four stories. At the lower two floors here is a larger recessed area, with an angled west wall at the ground floor bearing another mural; above it on the 2nd floor is a large bronze medallion with the city's education seal. Steps lead down to the building's main entrance, with two sets of double-doors like those to the west, with curved receding walls on either side, and a farther-recessed set of windows on the left, behind a single column supporting the upper floors. There is a wide window band across the whole recessed area. At the upper floors, there is grey brick between the windows bays at each floor. Another red, engaged, 3-story cylinder separates the next facade section, in which the ground floor is lower and serve more as a base, with three floors above. The 1st floor has a band of windows that curves back at its east end into another recessed section that has a 4-window bay, two double-windows, and a single-window, with two round columns supporting the upper floors, and ending in an angled east wall with another mural. The upper floors here have several bays of window bands in various widths, still with red metal framing and darker brick between bays. A final engaged cylinder separates the east end of the facade, which has a recessed ground floor with another entrance, and thin window bands next to the cylinder. There are no openings to the east of these windows, and at the top there is a large black metal vent. A long ramp from the ground slopes up to the left to the entrance in this section. To the east the base merges with the base of the neighboring apartment tower that was built as a financial investment for the school.

On the west end of the north facade on 51st Street ground floor has only two small, thin window bands, with a larger window band across the 2nd floor. The 3rd & 4th floors have two 4-window bays with red metal framing, separated by brown brick. The top floor has another thin window band. The top floors are separated from the rest of the facade by a deeply-recessed space to the left, bridged at the roof line by a section of brick. There is a red cylinder form at the rear of the recessed space. Below, the ground floor has an entrance with two sets of double-doors like those on the south facade, and there are no openings on the 2nd floor. Continuing east, the only openings on the ground floor are a few red metal vents set up high. The 2nd floor has three sections of short, thin window bands and then a regular-height band of six windows. There are more regular-height window bands at the 3rd floor, as well as the 4th floor (for two bays, after which the rest of the top floors are set-back). The top floor sill has short, thin windows bands. Another entrance at the ground floor is topped by a recessed cylinder above the 2nd floor. The ground floor continues to the east with three more short window bands set up high, and four bands of 5- or 6-windows at the 2nd-4th floors, with the 3rd floor also set back after the first bay. The top floors continue halfway to the end of the facade, where there is another cylinder that ends the 4th & 5th floors, with a large, black metal vent to its right at the 5th floor. The ground floor has yet another entrance, while the 2nd floor has two short window bands. The 3rd floor, set back above, has two bays of regular-height windows, and the 4th floor is set farther back.