P.S. 41 in Bayside unveiled its new facilities on Wednesday morning, featuring light-filled classrooms with views of Crocheron Park, an upgraded art studio complete with a kiln and a modern computer lab, marking significant improvements to the school.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the completion of a $51 million and 55,500-square-foot expansion of the elementary school, also known as The Crocheron School. Dozens of parents, the school’s staff and local elected officials attended the outdoor celebration, which featured speeches and a chorus performance, before touring the new building.
“Aside from small renovations over the years, the school’s essential structure has remained unchanged since 1927. Now we proudly cut the ribbon on the first addition to the school in almost 100 years,” shared Council Member Vickie Paladino.
The school is now comprised of two buildings, the old and the new, connected by a two-story glass “bridge” that sits above the new front entrance. The juxtaposition of old and new is clearest in the hallway outside of the gymnasium, where one wall is the old building’s brick exterior and the opposite wall is a bright, white and shiny addition.
Towering above the hallway is a colorful art installation that was heralded by a special art committee that selected the artist and approved the design. The artist, Joell Baxter, considered how light would reflect off the colorful but translucent panels streaked with brush strokes that decrease in size. The named the permanent installation the “Color Collider.”
Baxter said it needed to be designed with durable materials and ensure it remains interesting for the students and staff who will walk underneath it daily instead of a piece in a gallery that viewers take in once.
Over the past month, students and staff have been settling into the school’s additions, including new and improved art, music and computer learning rooms. There’s also a new HVAC system and automatic flush toilets, which have frightened some of the youngest students.
The academics haven’t changed, but the expansion added 20 new classrooms: four for Pre-K, two for kindergarten, 12 for higher grades and two for special education students.
The new playground, fitted with benches, grass and trees, is also a noticeable upgrade from the previous space, which just had a basketball hoop and a small playground set.
Approximately 450 students are enrolled this year, including in the school’s first-ever Pre-K class and up to fifth grade. That is about 60 more students than last year, but still not enough to fill some of the new classrooms sitting empty this academic year. This is a surprising issue, given that the expansion project was spurred by overcrowding.
“This expansion is for the future so we can grow, grow, grow,” said Assistant Principal Caroline Galan.
For years during construction, students were relocated to trailers stationed in what is now their brand-new schoolyard. Administrators recounted that it was difficult for the kindergarten students to trek back inside the building for lunch and extracurricular activities year-round.
The portable classrooms were dismantled in 2020, and the students were temporarily transferred to P.S. 390, a new school two miles away, to allow construction to be completed.
The P.S. 41 community doubted that the project would be completed by fall 2024, as the NYC School Construction Authority anticipated. They noted that the expansion had been ten years in the making, but with funding finally secured just before the pandemic, the project got delayed some more.
But to their surprise, the building’s new space opened exactly when they said it would.
“Thank you to everyone who worked on this project and thank you to the students and faculty P.S. 41 for your patience with construction. It all paid off in the end with a beautiful new facility,” said Paladino.
