Public School 9, also known as Livingston School, is a historic building built in 1892 and a school in New York City. The building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1987.

The original PS 9 location at 466 West End Avenue (1830–1965)

The school that became PS 9 was originally organized by the vestry

Vestry

A vestry is a room in or attached to a church or synagogue in which the vestments, vessels, records, etc., are kept , and in which the clergy and choir robe or don their vestments for divine service....

 of Saint Michael's Church

St. Michael's Church, New York City

St. Michael's Church is a historic Episcopal church at 225 W. 99th Street in New York City. It was founded in January 1807; the present Romanesque building was built in 1890 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996....

 (Episcopal) in the early 19th century. The vestry continued to operate the School at Bloomingdale

Manhattan Valley

Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by West 110th Street to the north, Central Park West to the east, West 96th Street to the south, and Broadway to the west...

 until a law was enacted November 19, 1824, barring church schools from participating in public school funding. On May 22, 1826, the Public School Society of New York acquired it; and, in July 1827, the Society paid $250 for a 100 x 100 foot tract at 82nd Street between 10th (Amsterdam) and 11th (West End)

Eleventh Avenue (Manhattan)

Eleventh Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the far West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, not far from the Hudson River. It carries downtown traffic only, south of West 44th Street, and two-way traffic north of it....

 Avenues. On July 19, 1830, the Society completed the construction of a one-story clapboard

Clapboard (architecture)

Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...

 school for $1,500, accommodating about 50 children. The Society transferred jurisdiction of PS 9 to the Board of Education in July 1853.

In 1889, The New York Times published a letter to Mayor Hugh J. Grant (1857–1910) citing grim conditions of a PS 9 structure in the same location that housed 1,100 children:

There was no visible plaster in the entire building. The wooden staircases and wood-lined stairways were only 29 inches wide. Large stoves and stovepipes beneath the stairs and elsewhere, used for warming the building, were dangerously close to the woodwork. The so-called passages were 30 inches wide. The building was devoid of any means of escape from the rear and devoid of a fire escape

Fire escape

A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the stairwells inside a building inaccessible...

. Means of egress from the front was insufficient.

The next year (1890), the Board of Education demolished the building. In 1894, the BOE erected a modern school building on the same site (466 West End Ave at 82nd St) — equipped with electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and ventilation

Ventilation (architecture)

Ventilating is the process of "changing" or replacing air in any space to provide high indoor air quality...

 — Charles B.J. Snyder

C.B.J. Snyder

Charles B. J. Snyder was a prolific American architect, architectural engineer, and mechanical engineer in the field of urban school building design and construction...

, architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

. The new building inherited the name "PS 9." Designed to blend with the neighborhood, the ecclesiastical English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 gothic

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 structure was a style prevalent of schools built by Trinity Church

Trinity Church, New York

Trinity Church at 79 Broadway, Lower Manhattan, is a historic, active parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York...

.

On January 26, 1916, during a graduation ceremony, PS 9 was named after the late John Jasper (1837–1915). Mr. Jasper was an educator who had served at PS 9 as (i) a teacher in 1857 and (ii) its principal from 1867 to 1897. He went on to become Assistant Superintendent of Schools

Superintendent (education)

In education in the United States, a superintendent is an individual who has executive oversight and administration rights, usually within an educational entity or organization....

; then, in 1898, he became Borough Associate Superintendent of Schools for Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 and the Bronx.

As a marker for how times have changed, in 1961, David H. Moskowitz (1903–1962), the Deputy Superintendent for Research and Evaluation for NYC Schools, reported a high transient rate at several elementary schools, including PS 9, which ranged from 90 to 99% during the 1959–1960 school year. This phenomenon, perhaps, provides insight towards public sentiment on the funding of public schools: When enrollment was highly transient, the public viewed school funding as a minimum legal obligation. Whereas, nowadays, enrollment is highly stable; therefore, funding is likely to be viewed more as an investment in the community.

The former PS 9 building is now the home of The Mickey Mantle School PS 811, serving children with disabilities.