Looking to the Future

Building on the past: Looking to the future

Here in New York, Dalton’s population and facilities have grown considerably and the school is now comprised of three separate campuses. The First Program, for kindergartners through third graders, consists of three interconnected townhouses on East 91st Street between Park and Madison

Avenues. Bright classrooms, as well as a gymnasium, a large art center, science laboratories, music classrooms, global language center, and dance and musical theater space, are enjoyed by all. The First

Program provides an ideal setting for Dalton’s youngest students.

The Physical Education Center is located at 200 East 87th Street.

This state-of-the-art facility is used by youngsters in the upper grades at the First Program through twelfth grade. Located on three floors in a high-rise building, it is comprised of over 32,000 square feet. It includes an exhibition gymnasium capable of seating 500 spectators, as well as a second practice gym, an aerobics room, a wrestling room, a dance facility, and a fully equipped fitness and weight training facility. Students and faculty make great use of this extensive physical education center and it clearly demonstrates Dalton’s deep commitment to its strong athletic and highly successful sports program. Dalton’s main building is at 108 East 89th Street where fourth through twelfth grade is housed. In recent years it became evident that Dalton had outgrown its space. The school’s thriving and innovative educational community, committed to its philosophical heritage of educational innovation, required expansion, especially in light of students’ increasing passions for computer science, robotics, and digital design. This realization resulted in an exciting journey to design and add two new floors on top of the existing main 89th Street facility. These floors are dedicated to STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and provides flexible space for collaborative and interdisciplinary meetings, community events, and an opportunity to host fairs and competitions. These new floors enable new offerings to be provided to our students without increasing enrollment. The expansion includes a robotic field, prototyping space, an engineering lab, computer science and digital media rooms, a nutritional science kitchen, and a greenhouse. There are glassed-in art rooms adjacent to a dance studio (which doubles as a black box theater), as well as open space for galleries and exhibits, which both students and faculty can enjoy. In addition to adding two new floors, the school set about to reimagine existing space on other floors in the building, maximizing the potential to transform the entire school for the twenty-first century. Overall, 32,000 square feet are impacted—12,000 square feet on the two-story rooftop as well as the renovation and repurposing of existing space. This redefined space and new floors enable faculty to carry out the progressive education Parkhurst envisioned that prepares students for the world they will inherit.