Worthington Hooker School

East Rock park, from its playgrounds and sports fields, its late 18th century trap-rock entrance gates and Soldiers and Sailors Monument, to its panoramic view of urban, suburban, terrestrial and water settings for miles in all directions, even into New York, is an essential experience of living in New Haven for many of its residents. For many, including students (and the author in particular) this experience includes walking back downtown, and toward the center of Yale’s campus, along Livingston Street. Only walking in this direction does the arresting front facade of the Hooker Elementary School grab the attention of the East Rock goer. Its architecture, and principally its front entrance along Canner Street, perpendicular to the primary orientation of the major streets in the area, is Beaux Arts — a style both in concord, and discord, with the surrounding area.

Even so, it is first and foremost a school, engaged in the public education of New Haven’s youth, the very same goal it began with when it was purpose-built as a school 120 years ago in 1900. One wonders if these kindergarten through second graders appreciate or even notice the architectural history and importance of the building that surrounds them. For them, school is school - in all the fun, annoying and exciting ways school is for little kids. But this might be highest accomplishment a school building can achieve. Continuously over the past one and a quarter centuries, this stately building, reminiscent of local mansions, has served to educate generations of students through radical changes in the world, the local neighborhood, the introduction of electric lights and so much more. The school’s beaux-arts frame serves as a framing backdrop for the wonderful lives of school children. The supplemental photo of schoolchildren inside the building exemplifies this perspective.