More Gotho-Deco: The Former Madison School

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2014)

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2014)

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2014)

More Gotho-Deco: The Former Madison School
by Samuel D. Gruber 

I recently wrote about the austere design of the Chaumont Apartments at 502 University Avenue, which used patterned brick as decoration - a common touch in the 1920s.  A block away is the Washington Arms Apartments that mixes Gothic and Art Deco motifs to create a dynamic form with an impressive entrance way, in what I called a Gothic-Deco mix.  More of this Gotho-Deco can be found at the former Madison School on Madison Street between University and Walnut, about equal distance between the two apartment buildings and directly across from the north flank of Temple Concord (1911). 

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2009)

The Madison School was built in 1917, not long after Temple Concord - after the sanctuary building but before the 1920s classroom building which replaced three adjacent row houses, and faced the new school.  James A. Randall (1861-1940), already a prominent local architect who would become one of the region's most prolific school designers, was the architect.  We can watch his style develop over several decades, until he is working in the full Art Deco of the Grant Junior High School, built in 1931.

The Madison School is a transitional building. Like most schools, the plan is the main thing, but the exterior articulation had to set a tone, too. It is symmetrically designed, and had entrances for girls and boys at opposite ends.  The building had three floors of well lit classrooms which in the 1980s were converted into residential condominium units.   A main formal entrance, up a flight of exterior stairs, was set beneath a wide flattened Gothic arch facing Madison Street.  The organization of this entrance with its upper two turrets adapts a traditional English Gothic tower-gate design that was well known in America  through its common use at colleges and universities (Princeton, Penn, etc.).  The entrance element no longer was defensive, but stood instead for an ideal of serious education. Between the little towers, and over the chiseled stone with the school's name, is a short combination parapet-pediment.  In the center of this shied resting on branches, and within the shield is an open book.  The book makes sense for a school, but also coincidentally parallels the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) set about the pediment of Temple Concord's classical porch.  

Randall had previously designed classically-inspired educational buildings, including the Carnegie Library on Columbus Circle in Downtown Syracuse, and only two years earlier (1915), the big Blodgett School on the West Side.  That  building, with its columns and other classical-Italianate elements was a direct descendant of the Central High school designed by Archimedes Russell and Melvin King that opened in 1910.

Syracuse, NY.  Blodgett School.  James A. Randall, architect (1915). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2012)

Syracuse, NY.  Former Central High School.  Archimedes Russell, architect (1910). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2012)

Syracuse, NY.  Former Nottingham High School / Levy Middle School.  Albert Brockwayl, architect (1924). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2012)

Both Randall and King would keep working to strip down their school designs to reduce costs and also to standardize a building type.  The trend is clear in the 1924 Nottingham High school by Albert Brockway, which has no Classical or Gothic elements, and no monumental entrance either, though there is still a bit of patterned brick and a few inserted limestone or cast stone blocks for decorative accent.   But overall, the form of the building looks like a factory for learning.  Compare it, for instance, to Ward Wellington Ward's 1909 Moyer Automobile Factory.

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). East entrance. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (200)

Syracuse, NY.  Former Madison School, southwest corner from Madison St.  James A. Randall, architect (1917). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2009)

A list of his schools designed by James Randall from Syracuse Then and Now is:

• Blodgett Vocational High School, 1915, 312 Oswego St., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Delaware School, 1917, 900 S. Geddes St., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Jefferson School, 1916, 512 Le Moyne Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Madison School, 1917, Madison St., & Walnut Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Charles Andrews School, 1921, Salt Springs Road, Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Danforth School, 1924, Kennedy Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Seymour School, 1923, 108 Shonard St., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Percy Hughes School (Crippled & Grade School), 1929, 345 Jamesville Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Washington Irving School, 1926, 725 Harrison St, Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Frazer School, 1929, 741 Park Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Grant Junior High School, 1931, 2400 Grant Blvd., Syracuse, NY. Extant
• Cathedral High School, 1916, 420 Montgomery St, Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• Sacred Heart High School, 1001 Park Ave., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• St. Patrick's School, 210 Schuyler St., Syracuse, NY. Extant.
• North Side High School -- Extension & Addition, 1980, Syracuse, NY.
• Oswego High School, 1921, Oswego, NY.
• Sayre High School, Sayre, PA.
• Sauquoit High School, Sauquoit, NY.
• Marathon School, Marathon, NY.