C.B.J. Snyder, Architect, Mechanical Engineer, and Freemason, was a man of vision. Serving as the Superintendent of Buildings of New York City Public Schools from 1891 - 1922, he designed and managed the construction of 400 public schools and additions throughout the five boroughs. Expressed through architectural form is the triumph of a child's possible future. Through education, the child is encouraged to reach for his highest potential. After New York City's old Pennsylvania Station, built in 1910 by McKim, Meade and White, was torn down in 1964 to make way for the construction of Madison Square Garden, Vincent Scully wrote: "Much more memorable now that it is gone, is the rhythmic clarity of the generous big spaces of the station, and the majestic firmness with which the great piers and columns and the coffered vaults defined them...It seems odd that we could ever have been persuaded that it was no good and, finally, permitted its destruction. Through it, one entered the city like a God. Perhaps it was really too much. One scuttles in now like a rat." C.B.J. Snyder's schools, majestic like the old Pennsylvania Station, celebrate the potential of the educated child. Education was one of the main incentives attracting immigrants to the New World, and inspired the struggle for independence from Europe. More than half of C.B.J. Snyder's original 400 schools are still standing, markers of the visionary and changing architectural fabric of New York City at the turn of the century. In his 1902 book The Battle with the Slum, reformer Jacob Ris wrote, "Snyder did for schools that which no other Architect before his time ever did or tried. He "builds them beautiful". In him, New York has one of those rare men who open windows for the soul of their time." In every age, forms grow up that are expressions of their time. Through a celebration of architectural beauty, technical innovation, and educational philosophy, C.B.J. Snyder's public schools exemplify the far-reaching influence of a fine work of architecture. PART ONE: THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE C.B.J. Snyder led the largest school building campaign that has ever existed in the United States. In the 1896 Annual Report, he declared that the number of school contracts to be bid over the next year was to be the largest not only in the history of the city, but in the history of the world. At the turn of the century, tens of thousands of Europeans left old homes and immigrated to the United States. America offered the possibility of a new life. New York City burgeoned. Between 1900 and 1910 alone, the population increased by thirty-nine percent. It was the largest foreign immigration in the nation's history. In 1894, the Compulsory Education Law was put into effect, mandating that children attend school up to the age of 14. In 1898, New York City was unified: the five boroughs, previously run separately, were combined into one municipality. The school board welded the independent curricula, grade divisions, educational policies, and standards into a single system. Dr. William Henry Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools at the time of the 1898 unification of greater New York, envisioned a public educational system wherein diverse studies reinforced one another, sparking meaningful connections in the mind of the child. He saw the school as a social factor influencing every form of human endeavor. Reciprocally, schools were to draw inspiration and guidance from the accumulated advancements of preceding generations, and the social and industrial machinery that made them possible. The school was to lead to the growth of good habits: punctuality, regularity, silence, & discipline. And this was only a small part of a school's responsibility. Dr. Maxwell wrote,"The school exercises should be so conducted as to produce a love for all things beautiful and good." Turn of the century New York City formed the fertile soil.