Morris High School is a Collegiate Gothic style with High-Gothic Revival elements New York City Landmarked building located in the Bronx. The original building was designed by C.B.J. Snyder and constructed between 1901- 1904. An addition was constructed in 1955 under the design of Eric Kebbon, who was then the Superintendent of School Buildings. This addition pursued the more modern style common of 1950s schools.
The original building was constructed of exterior load-bearing solid masonry walls with internal steel framing supporting concrete floor slabs. Its main nave is five-stories (plus basement and sub- basement) and contains an eight-story tall ornate central tower. There is a two-story, six-sided auditorium wing extending from the center of the building at the rear. The building façades consisted of buff-colored brick laid in Flemish bond with extensive ornamental terracotta, particularly around the windows and doors, along the roof gables and at the central tower which also displays a quartet of terracotta turrets with crenelated tops. Limestone clads the base of the building with a single course of bluestone at grade.
The school had suffered from water infiltration resulting from the deteriorated roofs, masonry and foundations. In 2007, a repair campaign was started by another architect to address these issues. However, during construction, additional deterioration at the gable levels was uncovered, and the newly replaced terracotta pieces already presented damage. Our office took over the project and started a new design in 2011.
All the new and old terracotta pieces were removed and replaced with Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) replicas, mimicking the historic exterior appearance. The entire tower was re-cladded with GFRC panels replicating brick masonry, allowing for a much lighting construction, all gables were rebuilt, selective brick masonry was repaired, selective limestone pieces were repaired or replaced, all roofs were replaced, and all foundations were injected with chemical resin to waterproof the perimeter.
