The Trinity Charity School was founded in 1709, when William Huddleston petitioned the London-based Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for school books and an annual salary. He proposed to provide free education for the poor and classes were originally held in the steeple of the church and in old City Hall.
On
May 3, 1748, the Trinity vestry considered the Church's ground adjoining to the
Lutheran Church, on the south side
of Robinson Street (present Rector St.), to be appropriated for building a
charity school building. Its foundation was finished by November, measuring 50
feet long and 23 feet wide, with a wing 18 feet square. The Charity School
House, as the Trinity vestry called it, was completed by April, 1749. It was
kept by Joseph Hildreth, clerk of Trinity Church and master of the Charity
School.
This Charity School House was destroyed by fire on the morning of February 23, 1750. The flames were so high that the steeple of the Trinity Church also burned. The records of christenings marriages etc, belonging to the Trinity Church, were also destroyed by the fire. In the same day, the Trinity vestry ordered the spire, fences and the cemetery to be repaired.
On March 27, 1750, the tragedy of "The Orphan", by Otway, was presented at the Theatre in Nassau Street, for the benefit of the Charity School.
A committee was appointed to take care of a new schoolhouse to be built on the same site. It was completed before October 3, 1751.
In 1760, sixty poor boys and girl attended the Charity School. In the same year, a committee of Trinity vestry was appointed to have a cupola erected and a bell hung upon the Charity School House.
On March 25, 1768, the Trinity vestry ordered that the Charity School House should be converted into a residence for the Rector of the Church and that a new school should be erected on some other part of the lands belonging to Church. The proposed new site, fronting the Commons (now City Hall Park), was still under lease. Then, on April 18, the vestry ordered that a temporary school house of 50 feet wide and 30 feet long to be built of brick and covered with tile or slate, on some of the lots behind Trinity Church. The staircase of the school was to be carried up on the outside of the building.
The English Free School, the Trinity Church, the Rector’s House, the Lutheran Church were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1776, during the Independence War. The west side of the city was devastated. After the fire, the services of the Trinity Church were held at the St. Paul Chapel. Ties to England were cut by the Revolution.
In November 1781, the St. George’s Chapel built in 1752 by Trinity Church on Chapel Street (now Beekman St.) had its Charity School attended by 86 scholars (56 boys and 30 girls). The boys were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and merchants accounts. The Girls, reading, writing, arithmetic, and needle-work.
In 1854, the King's College (now Columbia University) opened in the Trinity School House facilities and moved to its first building at Church Street, in 1760.
In May 1787, the ruins of the Rectors House and the Charity School House were still on the same site. Construction on the second Trinity Church temple began in 1788 and it was consecrated in 1790.
In October, 1790, the First Presbyterian Church completed the building of a school house at Nassau Street, opposite the New Dutch Church, which also had a school house.
By 1800, the new Episcopal Charity School House was built on the west side of Lumber Street, now Trinity Place (see the location in the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811).
In 1805, the Free-School Society of New-York was organized for education of poor children, who were not provided by any religious society. In 1853, this society ceased to exist and became part of the new public school system. The Free Academy of the City of New York (now the City University of New York - CUNY), was founded in 1847.
In 1838, the Episcopal Church School closed admission to girls. Before 1857, the Episcopal School building at 42-44 Trinity Place became part of the public school system.
In 1871, a Trinity School building was erected at 90 Trinity Place, on the southwest corner of Thames Street. Its formal name was N. Y. Prot. Episcopal Public School. It was an impressive 5-story building with a bell tower. In 1889, Trinity School moved to 627 Madison Avenue, moved again in 1890 to 108 West 45th Street and, in 1895, moved to its present location at 139 West 91st Street.
In 1907, the old site of the Episcopal School on Trinity Place was occupied by the 101 Greenwich, a 26-atory Beaux Arts style office building.
