Stuyvesant High School - School Facilities

School Facilities

By the 1980s the East 15th Street building was no longer a quality educational facility by modern standards. The five-story building, as pictured in the monochrome postcard above, could not cater adequately to the several thousand students, leading the New York City Board of Education to secure an agreement with the Battery Park City Authority for a new building, and construction began in 1989. The new ten-floor building, located near lower Manhattan's financial district was designed by Cooper, Robertson & Partners.

In 2006, Dr. Robert Ira Lewy, a graduate of the class of 1960, made a gift worth $1,000,000 to found the Dr. Robert Ira Lewy M.D. Multimedia Center. and donated his personal library in 2007. The school's library has a capacity of 40,000 volumes and overlooks Battery Park City. In late 2010, the school library merged with the New York Public Library (NYPL) network in a four year pilot program. All students of the school received a student library card which can check books out of the school library or any other public library in Bronx, Manhattan, or Staten Island. Students have the ability to return public library items in school or to place holds on public library items to be delivered and picked up in school. In addition, students can hold onto books for one week longer than those with ordinary NYPL card. For the first year, there will be no fines for lost/damaged items or late returns.

The New York City Department of Education reports that public per student spending at Stuyvesant is slightly lower than the city average. Stuyvesant also receives private contributions. Shortly after the new building was completed, the $10 million Tribeca Bridge was built to allow students to enter the building without having to cross the busy West Street. The new school building was designed to be fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is listed as such by the New York City Department of Education. As a result, the building is one of the 5 additional sites of P721M, a school for older (aged 15–21) students with multiple disabilities and mental retardation.

In 1997, the eastern end of the mathematics floor was dedicated to Dr. Richard Rothenberg, the math-department chairman who had died from a sudden heart attack earlier that year. Sculptor Madeleine Segall-Marx was commissioned to create the Rothenberg Memorial in his honor. She created a mathematics wall entitled "Celebration", consisting of 50 wooden boxes — one for each year of his life — behind a glass wall, featuring mathematical concepts and reflections on Rothenberg.