117 East 11th Street; 113-117 East 11th Street | Block : 556-2 | Lot #75

Description & Building Alterations

This 4-story former school was constructed in 1870 by Napoleon LeBrun for St. Ann’s Church. LeBrun designed many landmarked NYC structures, including the Metropolitan Life Tower and nearly every firehouse commissioned by the FDNY in the late 19th century. While all of LeBrun’s section of the adjoining St. Ann’s Church facing 12th Street was demolished, the former school was converted to residences in 1978.

The Delehanty Institute was located here in the 1950s through 1970s. The Institute was started by Michael J. Delehanty, and was once the city’s leading civil service school. According to a 1941 profile of Delehanty in The New Yorker, the school had graduated 350,000 students by that time. It further boasted that approximately 90 percent of the city’s policemen and 80 percent of its firemen were graduates of the Institute.