Celebrating our public spaces and the people who make them thrive

City-As School has spent fifty years meeting students where they are and creating the conditions for them to thrive. Located on Clarkson Street in Hudson Square, the high school serves transfer students through a rich and varied curriculum with special focus on arts and creative programming (murals on the inside and outside of the school building demonstrate the incredible talent within the walls of the school). City-As School also centers workforce readiness through their well-established citywide internship programs, providing students with opportunity, connection and experience. With no gym and limited access to recreational space, the street outside their door has become a classroom, a gathering place, and a place for students to call their own.

As a direct result of the leadership, hard work, and dedication from Assistant Principal Carl Oliver and teacher Maria Bermúdez and the City-As community, Clarkson Street has been reimagined as a School Street—despite bureaucratic hurdles, street maintenance, and other logistical difficulties. Students gather in the street for basketball practice, arts and crafts, and block parties that bring together neighbors, co-located schools like M721, and partners like Darius Nazario and NY Edge. The Clarkson School Street is a paradigm for how we can use public space to support our young people.