SAINT ANN’S SCHOOL CELEBRATES THE BOSWORTH BUILDING
Saint Ann’s School dedicated its newly restored main building to Founding Headmaster Stanley A. Bosworth in a community-wide celebration in his honor on May 19, 2007. The ceremony began with a trumpet fanfare composed by faculty member Jonathan Elliott. Remarks by Board of Trustees President Peter Darrow, Head of School Dr. Larry Weiss, Dean of Faculty Mary Watson, and faculty member Nancy Fales Garrett followed. Stanley accepted the plaque, which includes his vision for the school he founded more than four decades ago: “Our school is dedicated to our children so that they may know that in the last analysis education is a celebration of life.”
The plaque will grace the entrance of Saint Ann’s School at 129 Pierrepont, which is now known as the Bosworth Building. This landmark building in historic Brooklyn Heights features a newly restored façade, which was recently unveiled. Until the second week in May, the thirteen-story historic façade had been obscured by scaffolding for almost ten years.
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Over the years the building façade had been degraded by pollution and water penetration necessitating a major restoration project that cost several million dollars. The scope of the project came to include: replacement of the entire one hundred and eighty foot long cornice, repair or replacement of over four hundred lineal feet of structural steel, complete replacement of seven major window pediments and seven balconies, replacement of over one hundred various decorative elements and installation of eighteen thousand replacement bricks.
Many of the materials required for the restoration were not readily available. Bricks of this size and color were no longer made and had to be reproduced by a manufacturer located in Texas. The manufacturer of the decorative terra cotta “stones” was long out of business. The reproduction of these “stones”, in glass fiber reinforced concrete, was performed by artisans located right here in Brooklyn in compliance with specifications approved by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission thus preserving the historic character of the building.
Saint Ann’s School, originally the Crescent Club City House, is an architecturally significant building designed by Frank Freeman in 1906. The structure is considered to be the first example in Brooklyn of high-rise steel-framed construction. Architectural historian Andrew Dolkart has studied Freeman’s work and told The New York Times in 1995 that “His [Freeman’s] buildings seem to speak to people, he gave them an immediacy."
So immediate, in fact, that one Saint Ann’s student exclaimed, “It actually looks like a school now!”
