Hannah Wilke How An Abandoned Queens School Became PS1, A Mecca For Contemporary Art

Gothamist Oct 27, 2019

Around 1975, the art curator Alanna Heiss came across a hulking dilapidated schoolhouse in Long Island City during one of her scoping expeditions for exhibit spaces. Built in 1893 when Long Island was its own municipality, the terra cotta Romanesque school had cost a fortune to build and was replete with ornate details such as gargoyles, towers and turrets.

"It was extraordinarily beautiful," Heiss recalled earlier this year in an interview with Gothamist.

She added: "I knew immediately that it was going to be the best possible place."

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