York, Pa.’s, old Smyser-Royer factory to house new York Academy charter school
The old Smyser-Royer building in the York, Pa.’s, Northwest Triangle area will be converted inside and out into a new charter school. (See related York Daily Record/Sunday News photo below.) Also of interest: Collector searching for Western Maryland Railroad memorabilia and Map explains York, Pa.’s $50 million redevelopment area and Ohio Blenders silos in York’s Northwest Triangle are not coming down easily.
York Academy, later York County Academy, produced generations of graduates from its North Beaver Street schoolhouse.
In the 20th century, that school eventually evolved, along with York Collegiate Institute, into York College.
In 2011, the doors of another York Academy are set to open… .
The old Smyser-Royer foundry.
That’s the York Academy Regional Charter School – the product of York City, Suburban and Central school districts – offering an International Baccalaureate curriculum.
The school will combine city and suburban students, in part, on the idea that peers aid in the academic development of young people.
Not only did the school borrow its name from the past, but it will be located in the old Smyser-Royer foundry, part of the Northwest Triangle project.
Interesting.
The York County Academy came down in the 1960s era, but the old Smyser-Royer building, located around the corner, survived. For decades in the York area, relatively plentiful factory jobs meant that higher education often was not a family priority. A four-year college did not operate in York County – York College – until about 1970.
Now, leaders in the York area, at the recommendation of urban planner David Rusk, are addressing the concentration of poverty in the city and concerns about quality education options by turning a former industrial building into a schoolhouse.
A towered symbol of Industrial prowess, that proud part of York’s past, is being transformed into a symbol of York’s future, an emphasis on the education of city children. Classes will be filled with both the children from the old neighborhoods and those of the young professionals living in the new neighborhoods, in condominiums in the Northwest Triangle, CODO and elsewhere.
