School Plans Its 17th Move, but Its First Since 1892

It will be the 17th move for the school since its founding in New Amsterdam in 1628, but the first since 1892, when the West End Collegiate Church and the Collegiate School moved to the Upper West Side. Collegiate, a small yet fiercely competitive all-boys school, is renowned in private school circles for its academic rigor — its college placement list is the envy of many — its students’ self-confidence and its inelegant facilities.

Shabby chic, minus the chic, permeates the school. “We like that they come to a place that’s a little bit worn, lived-in, tattered and they make do,” said the headmaster, Lee M. Levison.

Everyone in a sense must make do. The foreign language department’s 12 teachers are spread across four floors; the department head’s office is in a closet. The boys’ outdoor space consists of an alley between the church and school where a basketball court sits next to the windows of the old gym. “The windows break three times a year,” Mr. Levison said. And then there’s the student lounge — all 250 square feet of it — which has the charm of a freshman boy’s dorm room, with stark finishings and mismatched couches of questionable fabrics.

“It’s messy and dirty,” said Ben Miller, president of the student body, proudly. Would he prefer a bigger one? “No, it’s a good size for the student body.”

Many students at Collegiate, where annual tuition runs to nearly $40,000, hail from privilege. Caroline Kennedy sent her son there, and Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary, sent two sons. In spite of its prestige, or perhaps because of it, displays of wealth are scant and boys wear cheap ties. Boys are expected to be respectful, but they are not expected to be still. The noise can be raucous and Mr. Levison has likened the changeover between classes to men moving around on a World War II submarine. Anna Quindlen, the essayist and former New York Times columnist, wrote about the school (which her sons attended), “It doesn’t pathologize boy behavior.”

In 2006, the West End Collegiate Church exercised its right to take back its space — which housed Collegiate’s upper school — giving the school until 2022 to vacate. In the meantime, the church has taken back some rooms, like the one that housed the college counseling office and computer labs last year.

The board sought to figure out how to expand the school without changing its culture, which many felt was reflected in its physical image. (Mr. Levison’s instructions to the architect Peter Gluck, whose son was in the class of 1987, was, “Make it nice, but not too nice.”)

“The danger that you have with physical premises which are eclectic is that you start to think your culture is a function of the eclectic premises,” said George “Gar” Bason, president of the board.

Collegiate, which has 648 students from kindergarten through high school, is a mishmash of buildings and borrowings. Its upper school is housed in the church buildings, at West 77th Street and West End Avenue; it owns a building at 260 West 78th street, called Platten Hall, as well as an apartment building next door called West End Plaza, both of which house lower and middle school classrooms. An “infill building” connects the two.  

Mr. Bason said the board considered many options for expansion, renovation or moving. Ultimately, building new quarters would provide the most future flexibility and space, he said. The new school will have roughly the same number of students, but 30 percent more total space (178,000 square feet) and 613 percent more outdoor space (16,268 square feet). The total cost of the project will be between $125 million and $135 million, which will be generated from fund-raising; the sale of the buildings it owns to the church; and bridge financing. The school hopes to be able to move in 2016 to its new quarters, which will be located in the neighborhood of new developments known as Riverside South.

Standing in the hallways with murals painted in the mid-1970s — bright orange and blue basketball players, odd depictions of underworlds, subway trains and movie theaters — students said they understood the school needed more space but lamented the end of an era.

“I hate to see it go,” said Mr. Miller, the school president.