05/27/2022
https://www.saintdavids.org/sd88
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The Acquisition of 15 East 88th Street - The Fourth and final Cutting Townhouse
May 26, 2022
Dear Saint David’s Community,
They say that luck is the residue of design, and throughout the history of Saint David’s, our boys have benefited from those with the wisdom to make the best of both. The confluence of luck and design propelled our first expansion in 1953, from our single building at 12 East 89th Street, the first of four townhouses comprising the Delano and Aldrich-designed Cutting Family compound, into the two adjacent Cutting townhouses, Numbers 14 and 16. Inspired design struck again in 1972 when, anticipating that the school’s needs would once again evolve, the school had the foresight to acquire Graham House, which now provides our boys with a STEAM suite, performance space and athletic facilities second to none in our City.
Fifty years later, unprecedented opportunity and prescient foresight have converged to launch the next exciting chapter in Saint David’s history: the acquisition today of the fourth and final Cutting Townhouse, 15 East 88th Street. In this latest stroke of luck, the opportunity to acquire contiguous, adjacent property was met with design in the form of swift, decisive action by our board, enabled by the prudent fiscal stewardship that has long been a hallmark of our institution. As a fortuitous aside, given the classical tradition of balance around the four pillars of Academics, Athletics, Arts and Spirituality that has guided the school since its beginning, there is a fitting completeness to reuniting all four Cutting homes within the Saint David’s family. Perhaps more fitting still, our boys’ good fortune is now made manifest by the school’s horseshoe footprint that encircles Madison Avenue from East 89th to East 88th Street.
Just as with Graham House a half century ago, this capital undertaking positions Saint David’s for the kind of success that will benefit generations of boys to come. The addition of 15 East 88th (a gracious twin to 12 East 89th, best observed now from Hume Library) will create 12,000 square feet more space to enhance the school’s academic curriculum and address future programmatic endeavors. The addition of an adjacent back yard also increases the school’s outdoor play space by a third, providing a critical outlet for our growing boys’ physical, social and most importantly, emotional well-being and development. Interior backyard space of this magnitude is a rare gift to any educational institution in New York City. Also, the possibility of extending Hyman Hall beneath the new building presents exciting new opportunities for our boys.
With zoning permitting all of these anticipated uses and more, how we deploy this exceptional gift of space to best support our boys on their journey to becoming good men is limited only by the reaches of our imagination – and our willingness to rise to meet it. Not surprisingly, what was once a personal home cannot be used in its current form as it must first be converted for optimal school use, as well as retrofitted for regulatory compliance. But having once again strategically looked beyond our current needs to anticipate future opportunities that may not yet exist, as the school’s programmatic needs evolve, 15 East 88th will be ready and able to meet them.
Although we are in the earliest planning stages of this strategic initiative, we will keep you informed of our thinking and progress at various intervals along the way. In the meantime, grateful for the visionary leadership that allowed us to realize this rare opportunity to benefit our boys and our teachers, and inspired by the strength of our community that compels us to think ahead to who we will be in service to their best selves, we are proud of all this move does to position Saint David’s as the premier learning institution in New York City for decades to come.
Ut viri boni sint,
David O’Halloran
Headmaster
Daniel S. Connolly ’77
President, Board of Trustees
