St. Paul's School (Garden City, New York)

St. Paul's School is a 500-room brick edifice in the Village of Garden City, New York, United States. As of 2010, the building is not currently used and is under threat of demolition.HistorySt. Paul's was built by Cornelia Stewart, widow of Alexander Stewart, and dedicated in his honor. This building is of High Victorian Gothic design. The architect was William H Harris, who had also designed the Cathedral of the Incarnation. The cornerstone was laid on June 18, 1879, with attended by Cornelia Stewart, her brother Charles Clinch, executor of Alexander Stewart's estate, Judge Henry Hilton, and Bishop Littlejohn, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Long Island. It took James L'Hommedieu four years to complete construction of this massive E-shaped building. It was crowned with a slate roof and a clock and bell tower. There were laboratories, classrooms, libraries, several dining halls, kitchens, a large reception parlor, permanent workspaces for staff, a beautiful gothic chapel, with seating for 400, dormitory space for 300 students, with spacious interior apartments on the top floors for masters, i.e. teachers.It opened in 1883 as a military school for boys, owned by the Cathedral of the Incarnation in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. In 1884, the St. Paul's football team won the New York area championship. The school also had baseball and ice hockey teams. St. Paul's remained a military school for only 10 years, afterward becoming a college preparatory academy, modeled in the British tradition. It designated academic years as Forms, with the first form being seventh grade, the second form corresponding to eighth grade, up to the sixth form being twelfth grade. Students studied Latin and the classics.