BFS
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100 Years of BFS – The 1967 Centennial

BFS Centennial in the New York Daily News, September 10, 1967 Click for the full PDF Celebrating our school’s 100th anniversary proved an incredible start to  the 1967-1968 school year at Brooklyn Friends School. An item related to our Centennial emerged while I was recently hand-scanning the tattered scrapbook from the late 1940s about the […]

Gatekeeper No More

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 […]

Our 2nd expansion,1888: Part 3 of Our Buildings, Our History

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 […]

1867 to 1886 and Our First Expansion – Part 2 of Our Buildings, Our History

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 […]

Video archives return with Forward to the Past, 1989

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 […]

BFS through the years – the last major class photos update

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 […]

Answers from Our Ancestors: The Jacksons on BFS, Friends Education and Quakerism

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 […]

Our First Meeting for Worship, 1941

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 […]

Found: New Class Photos!

1924-25, Class of 1927, 10th grade A recent excursion in the unsorted BFS photo archives uncovered a few class photos that were not previously included in the albums in the digital class photo collection. Found were 26 additional class photos from all decades, including two class photos taken before 1949, the most poorly represented period […]

William Bunker Tubby – the first architect of BFS

  Many know that Brooklyn Friends School began in the “social room” of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting at 110 Schermerhorn Street in 1867. Lesser known is the fact that our school gradually expanded, from 1877 to 1925, to the adjacent lots at 112, 114, and 116 Schermerhorn. The New York Times published a lovely article on […]

Miss Woodward, innovator at BFS and beyond from 1900 to 1951

  Examining the history of Brooklyn Friends School means also examining the history of education in Brooklyn and New York City. Brooklyn Friends School has a long history of educational innovations, but it also has a long history of allowing innovative educators to implement their ideas at BFS. Ella Frances Woodward exemplifies our long-standing commitment […]

All About Norregaard

  BFS celebrated Martin Norregaard’s 50 years with BFS with much fanfare at Reunion 2011. To jog your memories, Martin taught Middle School English and Social Studies from 1961 to 1991, then retired although he taught part-time for the next two years. After 1993, he remained in close contact with BFS and soon became a […]