School News

Architect’s renderings of the completed school building.

As you may know, Harlem Hebrew is in the midst of an important expansion of our facility- we’re renovating and adding a floor to our existing building and creating a new building next door. When completed, the two buildings will be joined to create a beautiful facility for 750+ students in grades K-8. As the school year nears and our summer construction winds down, we wanted to share a few exciting updates on the progress:

Existing building updates

• Some areas of the existing building were renovated in 2016. Further renovations to the existing building will take place after hours and during summer 2018, including reconstructing the bathrooms and moving the south stairwell.

New building updates

• So far, the foundation of the new building is in place, the building structure has been erected, concrete floor slabs have been poured (for six floors and the roof), fireproofing is complete, mechanical equipment has been installed on the roof, and the exterior walls have been framed so that the facade and windows can be installed this fall.
• Work on the new building began in mid 2016 and is on schedule to be completed in early 2018. The new addition will include classrooms, multipurpose rooms, special classrooms (music, etc.), and administration spaces.

Updates on summer work

• Over the summer, the crew has been working around the clock to create connections on each floor between the existing and new buildings. Areas of the existing building brick walls have been altered to construct doorways to the addition. The connections are now complete and the crew is installing temporary walls to close the connections while construction on the addition is completed. The summer work related to the connections is on schedule to be completed by August 19th.

There will be no impact on the school opening and no disruptions to the school program

•  The construction team continues to work very closely with the school based team to ensure that disruptive construction will not take place during school hours. This fall, as work progresses on the addition, noisy work will be done before and after school hours or on weekends as has been done in the past.

We look forward to the team’s continued progress and can’t wait to enjoy our new facility with all of you! It will truly be a space worth celebrating.

Best,
The Harlem Hebrew Team.