La Salle Academy Returns to Its East Village Home on E. 2nd St.
After sharing space with St. George Academy for 15 years, the 169-year-old La Salle Academy is returning to its historic East Village home. Nord Anglia International School, a British school that had rented the La Salle building, has now moved to Gramercy Park.
After 15 years apart from its historic East Village building, the 169-year-old La Salle Academy is going home.
The all-boys college-preparatory high school and Manhattan’s oldest still-running Catholic high school had for the past 15 years rented out its building at 44 E. 2nd St. to Nord Anglia International School New York (NAISNY), a K-8 British private school, which upgraded the facilities.
That school is moving to new quarters at 111 E. 22nd St. in Gramercy Park to start the new school year in the fall. While NAISNY is relocating to a neighborhood rich in history and academics, the move also allows La Salle to reclaim its beloved 2nd Street location, where they had been since 1856.
La Salle left its original location in 2010 due to the 2008 financial crisis and falling enrollment, challenges that threatened the survival of the academy. Part of their plan to restabilize the school was to lease the upper part of 215 E. 6th St. from St. George Academy, a Ukrainian Catholic elementary school. At the time, that school was also struggling with declining enrollment, but that changed after Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago and refugees began heading to New York City.
The changes now underway benefited all three schools.
Candace Hammonds, the president of La Salle, told Our Town Downtown that sharing the building on East 6th Street was ultimately a positive and productive experience.
“It was a great space. We are grateful for their hospitality and we had a great relationship with them,” said Hammonds.
The British school also looks back fondly on its decade-plus in the East Village. “We will miss the East Village, but we are looking forward to welcome students in the new building in Gramercy,” Jimmy Frawley, principal of NAISNY told OT Downtown. NAISNY took over La Salle’s building in 2011, and during its stay constructed a creative-arts floor, a rooftop playground, and a greenhouse, among other physical improvements. These developments now give the college-preparatory high school important improvements that the school would not have been able to finance on its own.
“The renovated building on 2nd Street will allow us to expand and create new academic, athletic, and extracurricular programs to ensure that La Salle offers its students the best 21st-century education possible,” wrote Salvatore LaRocca, chairman of the board of trustees of La Salle Academy, in a statement released by the school on March 12, 2024. “These improvements along with our continued commitment to providing a Catholic education in the Lasallian tradition will ensure that our graduates are prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing environment.”
When it comes to leaving the building that La Salle has learned to call home for the past 15 years, Hammonds explained how the school’s homecoming this fall is bittersweet.
“We do have alums that have been [at 215 E. 6th St.] for 15 years, so 6th Street is important, and we will bring relics with us so that our graduates from our current location will not be forgotten,” Hammonds said. “But [2nd Street] is definitely a special place and significant to our alums and even faculty and staff that like to come back and visit.”
St. George, the co-inhabitant of 215 E. 6th St. for the past 15 years, is likely to also benefit from the move. As the only Ukrainian-founded high school in the United States, the school has become a haven for young Ukrainian refugees since the war began in 2022, all while sharing the space with La Salle.
Three years ago, the school’s main concern was helping Ukrainian teens find community and an educational opportunity. However, enrollment increased rapidly, said Andrew Stasiw, the academy’s principal, admitting over 60 refugee students. Stasiw welcomed the new students with open arms, but also voiced new concerns about how to financially support the influx of students.
“When the war first broke out, our efforts here were to raise money for Ukraine. Now we need to raise money for our Ukrainian students that are here,” said Stasiw, according to a 2023 article in The74. “I had to hire additional teachers. I had to get additional lockers. I had to buy a lot more textbooks.”
The school even started a GoFundMe page to raise money for new demands. With this in mind, La Salle’s moving out of the shared building may relieve some of the spatial and financial constraints that St. George has faced since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Ultimately, with NAISNY moving to Gramercy and St. George assuming the rest of the 6th Street property, La Salle is able to resume its 169-year reign at 44 E. 2nd St.