The Second P.S. 99

When Kew Gardens was first subdivided, no land was set aside for a school. The first P.S. 99 [see the last page] was a portable wooden school house on Cuthbert Road. In 1915, Alrick Man proposed a site on the east side of Kew Gardens Road at Augustine (83rd) Avenue. Between 1920 and 1923, the Board of Education suggested a number of alternative sites - the Forest Hills side of Union Turnpike, the east side of Lefferts Boulevard, Forest Park on Park Lane, and Quentin Street (80th Road) near Park Lane - all of which were opposed by the Community. In January, 1923, the City's Board of Estimate finally approved the very site Man had suggested 8 years earlier. P.S. 99 opened in 1924.

Circa 1930 picture courtesy of Vincent Seyfried. Reference: Barry Lewis, Kew Gardens: Urban Village in the Big City, pp. 59 - 61 (Kew Gardens Council for Recreation and the Arts 1999).

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