Jean Arrington

The following is excerpted from the book FROM FACTORIES TO PALACES by Jean Arrington
AS WRITTEN by her daughters, Anne, Louise, and Kate Arrington Bauso.

IN MEMORIAM

Our mother, Jean Arrington, arrived in New York City in the summer of 2005 after a full career of teaching in the United States and abroad. She had taught in New York as a young woman, before family and work and life took her to Raleigh, North Carolina, for almost thirty years, and she had dreamed of returning one day. When Annie, our youngest sister, left home for college, it finally felt like that time. Her primary work goal, she imagined, was to land one final, part-time position that would allow her to continue teaching and give her time to explore the place in the world that excited her the most. She did end up teaching at Borough of Manhattan Community College and at Long Island University, both as a professor and as a mentor to New York Teaching Fellows. But it was in walking the city in search of employment that summer, visiting schools and meeting principals, that she developed a wonder of and then a passion for the magnificent turn-of-the-century buildings that still serve the majority of New York’s public school students. This wonder quickly led to an obsession with the neglected historical figure behind this architecture—Charles B.J. Snyder.

Our mother had no business writing this book. Although her experience in education was extensive, she had no expertise in architecture or New York history. So she simply turned herself into the person capable of writing it. She became an avid student, taking history and architecture classes at New York’s universities, going on frequent tours with the New-York Historical Society and Pratt University (tours she was very quickly leading), forging relationships with and support from New York’s most accomplished architectural historians and seeking out the living relatives of C.B.J. Snyder. She visited every one of the more than 278 still-standing schools that Snyder designed, befriending teachers, principals, and custodians. For many years, every Christmas included homemade gifts with Snyder’s face. When we would delicately ask after a date she may have had, she would reply, “Oh, it was lovely, but I don’t have time for another primary relationship. I’m married to Snyder now.”

In 2016, after a series of inexplicable falls, our mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. A year later, the diagnosis was amended to Multiple Systems Atrophy, an even more quickly debilitating disease. The physical toll was devastating, and by the time the manuscript was rejected with an extensive list of necessary changes, our mother was no longer capable of typing on a computer. Although it was Covid-19 that ultimately caused her death in January 2022, three months prior to the publication of this book, it was also Covid that gave her the opportunity to complete this work. Through the marvel of Zoom and the opportunity of quarantine, Cindy LaValle, Snyder’s great-granddaughter, would become our mother’s hands as well as her devoted and tireless partner. It is due to the dedication of these two remarkable women that we are elated to have and hold this book and to tell the story of C.B.J. Snyder, a genuine champion of New York’s children.

cynthia.lavalle@gmail.com
janosmike@aol.com