If you were walking down tree-lined 258th Street seventy-five years ago, you might have wondered just where, among the many one-family houses, P.S. 191 was. In front of the building stood a flagpole. It is this flagpole, which singled out P.S. 191 as a school. Otherwise it might well have been just another residence on the street.
Our school stood quite alone and could be seen from a distance of almost two miles. It looked like a tiny speck in the surrounding fields. It first opened in 1923. At that time it was an annex to P.S. 33. In 1925, it became an independent school, P.S.115, with classes from kindergarten to the eighth grade. However, as the community grew and other schools were built, P.S. 115 gradually lost the upper grades. Finally, its name was changed in February 1950 to P.S. 191. This happened when a new P.S. 115 was built.
The little gray wooden schoolhouse contained six classrooms, a medical room and the principal’s office. Its classes went from kindergarten through the fourth grade. Because of its tiny size, P.S. 191 had a truly home-like atmosphere. The principal, teachers and pupils knew each other as members of one big, happy family. The students played on the lawn surrounding the school, as there was no real playground available. School life was also made more pleasant by the wonderful trees and shrubbery about the school. Pine, dogwood, maple and cherry trees, lilac bushes and forsythia could be seen around the property. Nature was right at our school’s doorstep.
How We Became P.S. 191
In 1950, the “Little Wooden Schoolhouse” was renamed P.S. 191. Building and a population explosion in Floral Park and pressure from the community brought about the building of a new P.S. 191 on the site of the old wooden schoolhouse in 1954.
The “Breaking of Ground” ceremony for the new P.S. 191 was on October 31, 1952. In February 1954, a new, red, brick building, which had been constructed next to, the gray wooden schoolhouse, opened. Students marched, with books in hand, into their new school.
The Bureau of Construction of the Board of Education planned the school. Its construction cost $1,560,414 at that time. Today comparable construction would probably be between 8 and 12 million. P.S. 191 represents the 39th new school started in the Borough of Queens as part of the Board of Education’s post World War II building program.