1940, BFS Principal Douglas Grafflin’s Address to the Trustees of the Schools of New York Monthly Meeting proposing the enrollment of African American students at BFS. Please click to read Grafflin’s entire address This week, I’m unexpectedly switching gears thanks to a courageous conversation focused on the experiences of students of color in independent schools, a conversation […]
A front view of NYMM’s Schermerhorn properties ca. 1888, showing the eastern side of the Brooklyn Meeting House The second expansion of BFS occurred in 1888 with the purchase of the two vacant lots at 112 and 114 Schermerhorn, just east of the Brooklyn Meeting House, the open space seen in the photo used in […]
Look at the right of this ca. 1893 photo of the Germania Club to see the Brooklyn Meeting House at the far right. Look closely to see the snow on what seems to be the rooftop of our school’s 1886 building just east of the Meeting House. In light of the great news of the most recent expansion of BFS, a new home […]
1987’s The Robber Bridegroom, Upper School Musical Scanning a 1920s scrapbook by hand can be monotonous, so I’ve been multi-tasking by going to my family’s collection of BFS videos once again since I know video did not always survive in the school’s collections over the years. My own home was the source of last week’s Forward […]
Forward to the Past – Finale – 1989 Do you remember Forward to the Past: Historical Hysterical Follies of Brooklyn Friends School? That was the 1989 musical about BFS – written and produced by BFS community members who also starred in the production. Forward to the Past was about an alien named T.E. from the […]
The Class Photo Collection received its final serious update from the BFS Archives recently, this time from yearbooks to make this important collection more complete. As many know, BFS does not have a complete collection of class photos and not all BFS yearbooks contained class photos. The only way to have a more complete collection […]
These days BFS yearbooks are hard-bound volumes, about 200 pages in length, often have color photos, and provide an overview of the year for the entire school. The earliest known BFS Yearbooks, from 1927 to 1932, differ in many aspects from today’s norm. The 1927 BFS Yearbook was the Commencement Edition of The Life, which […]
1995 – Service at the “Park” (now known as the Marriott) Certainly, there are myriad ways in which we all contribute to the greater good of our world, but BFS has a long tradition of encouraging its students and families to learn through giving their time, energy and monies to non-profit organizations, including to BFS. […]
Will Walter Jackson Unlike computers or labs or books, defining the heart of Brooklyn Friends School is difficult. That heart is rooted in Quakerism and we do try to explain these “intangibles” which are shared and passed down, and which can be extremely personal to each individual. They make up the very air we breathe […]
Meeting for Worship is such an important element of the Brooklyn Friends School experience that it is difficult to imagine that it did not exist in its present form at Brooklyn Friends School until October 30, 1941. We can thank Douglas G. Grafflin and S. Archibald Smith, two former BFS Heads of School, for introducing the […]
This week, we have a few additions to the Digital Archives. Two new items in Playbills: the 1980 Middle School production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience or Bunthorne’s Bride and the 1982 Intergenerational Chorus performance at the CUNY NYC College of Technology’s Klitgord Auditorium on Jay Street. The BFS Sampler 2 photo album has now […]
Teachers’ Treats Cookbook, published 1984-85 Some of us will remember the BFS cookbooks produced by members of our community, most often our teachers and parents of the PAT. The first of these cookbooks shared here is titled Teachers’ Treats, was illustrated by Lower School students, dates to the 1984-85 school year, and was found in […]
