A piece of Bay Ridge’s medical history is about to disappear, with the former St. Nicholas Home and neighboring properties headed for demolition to make way for a new high school. Community Board 10 said last Friday that work was expected to begin within 10 days, putting the long-discussed project on the verge of becoming very real.
Properties at 437, 439, 441 and 445 Ovington Ave. are slated to be cleared for the school site. According to Brooklyn Eagle, the planned building will have 676 seats, including District 75 special-education seats, and occupy roughly 35,470 square feet on a 0.81-acre site.
A Hospital, Then A Home For Older Brooklynites
The building at 437 Ovington dates to 1927, when it opened as Bay Ridge Sanitarium, according to a New York City environmental review. The review says it was renamed Bay Ridge Hospital in the early 1940s and later became the St. Nicholas Home for the Aged.
That history gives the teardown a little more weight than a routine construction-site clearance. A New York State Senate resolution records that St. Nicholas Home opened its doors on October 19, 1982, after the old hospital was renovated into a 74-bed residence for elderly people.
Years Of Planning Are Finally Turning Physical
The city formally identified the Ovington Avenue property for a new high school in a 2023 notice. The City Record described a site containing vacant garages, an unoccupied two-story building and the vacant five-story structure formerly used as St. Nicholas Home.
Permit filings reviewed by New York YIMBY call for a five-story, roughly 94-foot-tall school with a cafeteria, auditorium and indoor athletic space. The proposed building is expected to provide about 35,373 square feet of community-facility space.
Neighbors Had A Different Vision For The Site
Community Board 10 voted against the school proposal in 2023, citing traffic, overcrowding and concerns that the facility might not primarily serve local students, according to the Brooklyn Home Reporter. The advisory vote was 34 opposed, six in favor, one abstention and one recusal.
Residents also pointed to the cluster of nearby schools, including P.S./I.S. 30 buildings and Lutheran Elementary School across the street. Their concerns centered on emergency access, drop-off traffic and whether a new school would actually relieve pressure at Fort Hamilton High School rather than simply move the bottleneck a few blocks.
The Need Case Has Not Gone Away
The School Construction Authority projects that Brooklyn will have 71,244 students enrolled in grades nine through 12 by 2027, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. That forecast helps explain why city officials have continued advancing the project despite the neighborhood opposition.
Bay Ridge now has a firm near-term timeline for what will vanish and a less certain one for what will replace it. Demolition is expected to begin within the next 10 days, while permit coverage has not identified a completion date for the school.
