You readers are sharp. In the inaugural edition of our Cornerspotter game it took all of three minutes to correctly identify the building we picked out for our new guess-the-place contest. It is indeed Aviation High School located at 45-30 36th Street in Queens. The address says LIC, but it looks like Sunnyside to us. The modernist building, reminiscent of the U.N. located almost due east across the East River, was designed by the firm Chapman, Evans, and Delehanty. The building appears almost completely unchanged from the outside in the 54 years since it opened.
When the design was first revealed in 1954, the budgeted cost for the building was $8,465,000. There was space for 2,500 full-time students and 4,000-5,000 part-time students who could take evening classes. Aviation was big business in Queens and Long Island in the post-war years, and the high school was built to accomodate growing demand for workers with the educational and practical skills to work in the industry.
The Queens facility was an expansion of the school, that was founded in 1925 and housed at a trades school building on East 21st Street in Manhattan, but grew until it was renamed the Manhattan School of Aviation Trades and moved to a former elementary school at 220 East 63rd Street.
This Cornerspotter was a relatively easy one, since it was the first. Check back Friday for our second installment.
· Little Spare Change Can Be Found on This Corner [Curbed]