Colored School No. 2

1839 - present

P.S. 243 was once home to the African School first established in 1839, more popularly known as "Colored School No. 2" — one of four segregated schools established by Black educators, intentionally built in the successful, free African-American community of Weeksville. The school was absorbed into the Brooklyn public school system in 1853. In 1882, Mayor Seth Low appointed Philip A. White as the first Black member of the Board of Education, and in his position as Chairman of the Committee on Colored Schools, he actually advocated for the integration of P.S. 83, as it was renamed after the Civil War. The school is credited in multiple sources as being the first integrated school and having a successful and long record of white and Black leadership, teacher staffing, and students. During the 1930s, the Renaissance Revival architectural structure was again renamed the "Isaac Newton School". In 1966, the New York City Housing Authority sold the building to the City for $1, and in 1978, the city sold the building to the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, whose primary worship house is located right across Schenectady Avenue. Local reporters broke news that the abandoned and dilapidated building would become developed into affordable apartments, but the materialization of this project would have to be confirmed by an eye-witness, as the Google Maps "street view" is dated October 2018 and the news article was published in March of 2019. Today, "The Weeksville School" is still in operation as P.S. 243, albeit housed within a different campus nearby, which has a partnership with the Weeksville Heritage Center a few blocks away.