Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School

The Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School was built in 1887 to provide a safe harbor for the thousands of homeless children who once populated these streets. The Children's Aid Society founded this facility to offer newsboys and bootblacks a bed, a hot meal, and vocational training in trades like printing and sewing. Unlike the typical institutions of the era, the society aimed to foster self-reliance, requiring the boys to pay a small fee for their lodging. You can see a decorative letter S near the window, which honors Mrs. Robert L. Stuart, the benefactor whose donation of fifty thousand dollars made this building possible.