The former Philip Livingston Magnet Academy is located along Northern Boulevard in the West Hill neighborhood of Albany, New York, United States. It is a large brick building predominantly in the Colonial Revival architectural style, with some Art Deco touches inside, erected during the 1930s. Additions were made in the 1960s. In 2014 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Philip Livingston Junior High School, the only purpose-built public school building in the city so recognized.
During most of its existence, it was one of four middle schools operated by the City School District of Albany, later converted into a magnet school for its final years, during which it declined academically and developed a reputation for crime and violence. It was described as the city's most outstanding school building upon its opening. It also became one of Albany's architectural landmarks due to its location at the main arrival point for travelers arriving from, or passing by, the city's north. Since its closure it has been sold to a private developer and converted to senior housing, a decision some members of the school board have come to regret as the district still has overcrowding issues.
From its inception the school played a role in developing the community, an early center of African American migration into Albany, beyond its educational function. The Albany Symphony Orchestra played its concerts in the building's auditorium for many years. Amelia Earhart spoke at the school, and a 1947 concert by Paul Robeson at the school caused a major local controversy when the city government attempted to block it due to the performer's known sympathies with the Communist Party.
Building and grounds
The school building is located at the south end of a parcel at the west corner of Albany's West Hill neighborhood, a mile and a half () north of the city's downtown. The terrain around the building is drastically different. On the south it remains relatively level; in the other directions it drops off roughly into one of the ravines carrying small tributaries of the Hudson River that characterize Albany's topography in the eastern section of the city.
On the south side of the building, across McCrossin Avenue, are detached single-family homes on small lots. These continue into the rest of the city. On the east, across the wider Northern Boulevard, or Dudley Heights, there are more residences, on larger lots, with some businesses. Behind them is undeveloped land, a buffer zone for railroad tracks used by CSX freight trains and Amtrak's Empire Service passenger trains. To the northeast, is the elaborate multilevel interchange of U.S. Route 9 and Interstate 90.
North of the school property, on either side of the street, are two charter schools, KIPP Tech Valley on the east and Green Tech High on the west across Manning Boulevard North. Beyond them is wooded buffer, the railroad tracks and the interstate. To the west is the Tivoli Nature Preserve, centered around Tivoli Lake, the largest urban protected area in the state after New York City's Central Park.
Most of the school property is taken up by a large athletic practice field, with soccer goals, to the north of the building. Park Drive borders it on its west and comes around the south to serve as the main entry road, with some parking spaces on its south side. A larger parking lot is located on the south side of the building, accessed from the intersection of McCrossin and Thornton Street.
Building
The building itself is a three-story, Y-shaped, steel frame building clad in brick and cast stone. It consists of a three-story central pavilion with flanking wings themselves ending in pavilions. On the west of the central section is a shorter wing housing the building's auditorium.
Exterior
In the center, the main block consists of the five-bay central pavilion, flanked with a recessed bay on either side. Both the main and recessed portions have a gambrel roof with parapets along their end walls. A tall copper-clad cupola rises from the center.
On the east (front) elevation, the pavilion is faced in cast stone imitating a coursed ashlar pattern. In the middle, the three bays of the entrance are recessed in a projecting section of their own, flanked by pilasters and topped with a paneled frieze. To either side are three six-over-six lower-level hopper sash windows with a splayed pattern in the cast stone above. At the corner of the front pavilion's first story is a similar window with four-pane sidelights. The corner face is set with four-light triple-hung sash. The recessed bay on the ends of the front pavilion is set with six-over-six with sidelights similar to those at the flanks of the middle section; the corners are quoined
A stone beltcourse divides the first and second stories. At the center a decorative wrought iron fence makes for a small balcony atop the entrance. The top of the fence is level with a ribbon course that also serves as the sill for windows on that story.
At the center of the second story is an aluminum double door, each with eight narrow lights, flanked by four more such lights on the side, topped by a rectangular 15-light transom. On each side are double-hung 12-over-6 sash with a lower hopper, flanked by fluted pilasters that rise to the next story. The two bays to their sides are set with nine-over-six double-hung lower-hopper sash in an arched surround with a keystone and five-light sidelights, on a brick face. Below each is a recessed panel. Around the corner, the bay is blind, recessed below another arch. The recessed bay is set with eight-over-eight double-hung lower-hopper arched sash in a decorative surround.
The third story has a carving of the city of Albany's coat of arms in the center, topped by a broken arch pediment with dentilled cornice. It is flanked by two 12-light windows with sills and dentilled cornices supported by a scroll bracket on the side next to the coat of arms. Recessed panels are above and below both.
Flanking on the next two bays are two nine-light windows with three-light sides topped by a broken scroll pediment, their sills resting on the keystones below. The corner bay is set with a plain, recessed blind panel. Next to it on the end bay is an oculus with keystones at the cardinal points in a stone surround, set with a 16-pane grid.
Above the third story is a frieze and cornice. Between those and the roofline is an entablature with five recessed panels. In the middle one, wider than the other four, is set metal lettering reading "Philip Livingston Junior High School".
The roof is clad in asphalt shingles. On the east side it is pierced by six segmental-arched dormer windows sided in copper. They are set with four-over-four double-hung sash with a lower hopper and four-light sides. Large scroll brackets mark the end of the north and south parapets.
Wooden fencing on the east and west sets off the flat top of the roof. On the brick-faced north and south of the central section, an oculus similar to the one on the third-story corners is located in the center. The parapets have a recessed central portion with cast stone coping and a stone course in the middle of the central portion.
The cupola has three stages. At its base the square pedestal is clad on all sides to resemble the upper half of the second-story windows. On the corners of the north and south faces are short projections connecting to the wooden fence topped with scroll brackets. A cornice sets off the second stage, with scrolled pilasters on the corners framing a paneled section topped by a circular window with radiating muntins set in a molded surround with a keystone. The third stage, at the top, is a grooved curving roof topped by a small finial.See accompanying photo
Both wings have a similar design. A cast stone water table at ground level is topped by 16-light windows with an eight-light lower hopper, with smaller versions at the corners. At the lintel level is a cast stone beltcourse, with a wider one above serving as the sill line for similar windows, also found above. Topping those windows is a cast stone frieze that ends below the applied metal at the roofline.
Engaged cast stone piers divide the facade at regular intervals. Within them the first and second stories are set with rectangular windows similar to those in the central pavilion's dormers without the sidelights; the third story has an elliptical oculus. Above it is some decorative stonework and an inverted arch at the roofline.
The pavilion at the south end is similar in plan and treatment to the central pavilion, seven bays by three, three stories tall and topped with a gambrel roof and parapet. In the center of the first floor, at the top of some stone steps, is a monumental entrance with double door framed by decorative cast stone, topped with a broken arch pediment. Above it is a similarly treated window.
All other windows are tall 12-over-8 with a lower hopper. Corners are quoined in cast stone. As with the east facade, stone beltcourses serve as the lintel line for the first story windows and the sill for those immediately above. The centers of both gables are set with oculi similar to those on the main section. The north pavilion is similar, but with a more modest central door meant primarily as an exit.
The south and west (rear) facades of the two wings are less decorative. Most windows are set with lower-hopper windows of the same size as their counterparts on the front but with no paning; there is an area of the rear of the south wing on the second and third stories where this pattern is interrupted for some irregularly sized and placed windows. A small three-bay shed-roofed projection, with glass windows on all sides to the roofline, is along the middle of the first story. The roofline of the wings is decorated only with a strip of applied metal. The rear can be seen by using Street View from this location.
On the west side the central pavilion's end bays are not recessed; there is a secondary entrance with double doors and stone surround on the south corner. A six-by-five-bay wing projects westward from it, three stories high, faced in brick with a flat roof. At its rear is a freestanding brick chimney stack, counted as a separate, contributing structure for the purposes of the National Register listing.
The four eastern bays on the north and south facades of the auditorium wing are set with simulated sash, broken by vertical and horizontal mullions, two stories tall rising from a stone beltcourse sill within slightly recessed round arches with keystones at the top. In the fourth and fifth bay exposed basement levels are a pair of double-door entrances with stone surrounds. The fifth bay has a 12-over-8 similar to those on the building's east facade midway along the height of the taller windows, with a simulated oculus closer to the roofline, marked by a cast stone cornice.
At the corner the wing has a blind diagonal facet, with engaged brick piers dividing them from the side elevations. An entrance with metal double doors is located. In between the corners are four evenly spaced single and double windows on both stories, set with the lower hopper windows seen elsewhere on the building. The third story has another simulated oculus similar to the other ones.
Interior
Behind the three main entrance doorways is an interior vestibule. It has polished concrete floors, simulated stone walls and Art Deco piers. Three more doors, wooden with glass panels topped by five-light transoms, open into the main lobby.
The concrete floors and simulated stone walls continue into the lobby. They are complemented by Art Deco pilasters rising to a coffered ceiling. Elaborate surrounds with cast stone entablatures frame the doorways to the two former main administrative offices off the lobby.