C. B. J. Snyder

Snyder in his office, circa 1900

Charles B.J. Snyder (1860-1945) was an American architect and engineer famed for his leadership and achievements as Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education between 1891 and 1923. Synder was a prolific master designer of public schools whose innovative H-plan design provided each classroom with generous light and fresh air. Each school also featured a grand courtyard entrance.

In 1923, Charles B.J. Snyder retired, citing health problems, although he had been virtually forced out of the post by Mayor John Francis Hylan.

Notable Works

Postcard featuring the 15^th Street facade of Snyder's Stuyvesant High School building.

Snyder planned, designed and built some 170 distinguished structures (400, including additions) for the Board of Education. Synder's schools were typically designed using Beaux Arts or Gothic touches, and in mid-block locations away from busy and polluted avenues. One of his signature motifs was to design spaces for learning that would offer a respite, especially when teeming noise and impoverished squalor was nearby.

Existing Elementary Schools

• PS 6 (On Madison Avenue, Upper East Side)
• PS 31 (425 Grand Concourse, Harlem, Manhattan)
• PS 42 (Hester)
• PS 109 (225 East 99th St, Harlem, Manhattan)
• PS 110 (lower east side)
• PS 165 (234 West 109th St, Manhattan)
• PS 166 (132 W 89th St, Manhattan)
• PS 168 (317 E 104th St, Manhattan)

High Schools

• Erasmus Hall High School (899-925 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn)
• Manhattan Trade School for Girls (now The New Manhattan High School Collaborative) (127 E 22nd St)
• Curtis High School (Staten Island)
• The second home of Stuyvesant High School, occupied from 1907 to 1997 (345 East 15th Street, Manhattan)

Former Schools

File:Blue Erasmus front .jpg

Original blueprint of Erasmus Hall at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center

• The former PS 64 (605 E 9th St, Alphabet City, Manhattan)
• Former PS 150 (1904), then Hunter Model School (aka Hunter Elementary), then Machine and Metal Trades High School, currently Life Sciences Secondary School (E 96th St, Manhattan)
• Washington Irving High School (40 Irving Place, Manhattan).
• Original PS 9 (466 West End Avenue, Manhattan)
• Morris High School (1110 Boston Rd, Bronx)

Education & Training

Snyder studied at Cooper Union and worked with the obscure New York architect William E. Bishop. It is not clear how he got the job at the Board of Education, but he may have had a connection with the banker Robert Maclay (d. July 28, 1898), who served as head of the school board's building committee — Snyder named his younger son "Robert Maclay."

Family — Personal History

Charles B.J. Snyder was born in Stillwater, NY, November 4, 1860. Throughout his life, very little was known about his personal or family life. He was the middle of three children born to George I. Snyder (harness maker) and Charity A. Snyder (nee Shonts), the other two being sisters, Ella (b. approx 1857) Katy and Ella (b. approx 1865). His mother was the daughter of Jeremiah Shonts and Charity Curtis, the latter being descended from Thomas Curtis who settled at Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1634. His father was eighth in descent from Deitrich Snyder of Hachenburg, in the Palatinate, whose wife was a daughter of Christian Deitrich of Grafschaft, Neuurd. Mr. Snyder's great-grandmother, Eleanor Knickerbocker, born August 9, 1778, was descended from Harmen Jansen Knickerbocker, from the village of Wijhe, Holland, whose oldest child, Johannes, was baptized in New Amsterdam, November 6, 1667.

Snyder was married to Harriet K. Snyder (b. approx 1861-1864 - d. May 25, 1927, Brooklyn). They had two sons:

1. Howard Halsey Snyder (b Oct. 15, 1890), graduate of Cornell, married Catherine Elizabeth Stafford 1914.
   1. Elizabeth Katharine Snyder (married Louis Herbert Orr, Jr., Sept 15, 1939)
      1. Josephine Randall Orr (married Edward Schenck Redington March 30, 1940). Josephine is a graduate of the Gibbs School, Sarah Lawrence College. Edward graduated from Dartmouth 1936 and Yale Law School 1939. Edward died September 19, 2001, at age 87.
         1. Edward Kingsbury Redington (b. Feb 27, 1943) (Miami Beach, FL)
         2. John O. Redington (Roanoke College 1976) (Southport, NC)
         3. Randall Redington (a daughter, b. Sept 22, 1946) (married Rev. Donald Stwewart McPhail 1969) (Charleston, SC)
      2. Stephen Halsey Orr (b. Feb 14, 1945)
         1. Stephen Halsey Orr, Jr. (graduated Hamilton College, 2005)
2. Robert Maclay Snyder (b. Sepember 6, 1894, New Rochelle) married R. Main. They had a daughter, Gail Main Snyder, who, in 1944, married Norman B. Norman (b. 1914 NYC - d. 1991 Miami, FL). Norman was a graduate of Columbia. Norman and Gail had two children:
   1. Peter DeVries Norman (Cambridge MA)
   2. Susan Elizabeth Norman (married in 1977 to Marc Aaron Blumenthal, now divorced) (Dover, NH).

Charles C.B. Snyder died in a freak gas accident in 1945 at 85. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, in an unmarked grave.

Professional Affiliations

• Member — New York Chapter American Institute of Architects
• Member — American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers

External links

• [1] New York City Landmarks Preservations Committee Report on the second home of Stuyvesant High School, occupied from 1907 to 1997, with extensive information on Snyder.