{"nrhp_refnum":"77000973","name":"Poppenhusen Institute","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"114--04 14th Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Queens","state":"NY","lat":40.78454967300007,"lon":-73.85307238099995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1977-08-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story brick civic building with a mansard roof, built in 1868 at 114-04 14th Road in College Point, Queens, New York, on a plot of about two acres.","why_significant":"It was founded by industrialist Conrad Poppenhusen as a civic center and vocational school for the College Point community. It is an excellent, nearly intact example of mid-nineteenth-century civic architecture. It also reflects the industrial paternalism and philanthropy of the period and housed an early free kindergarten.","narrative":"Built in 1868 at 114-04 14th Road in College Point, Queens, this three-story brick building was created as a civic center and vocational school. Its founder, Conrad Poppenhusen, was a German-born rubber manufacturer who gave $100,000 to establish an association for the advancement of knowledge and the improvement of working-class life. The architectural firm Mundell and Teckritz designed it with a mansard roof, tall pilasters, round-arched windows, scrolled brackets and a dentiled pediment over the north entrance. Inside, the wide central hall, plaster walls, turned balusters and original gas fixtures survive largely unaltered. The building housed a kindergarten by 1870, described as the first in the United States, and later held a free library, a village hall, a jail and a savings bank. It still serves the community with vocational and English instruction, a kindergarten and public lectures, and it reflects nineteenth-century industrial philanthropy.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Mundell and Teckritz","architectural_style":"Mansard, with Italianate decorative details","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and still in use as a community center, private vocational school, English language school for new immigrants and kindergarten; interior and exterior remain virtually unaltered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:38.689207-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/77000973.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000973/2090c516cd-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000973/2090c516cd-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"MyName (Jim.henderson (talk))","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poppenhusen_Institute_jeh.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">MyName (Jim.henderson (talk))</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poppenhusen_Institute_jeh.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75321129","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppenhusen_Institute","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7229517"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/queens/poppenhusen-institute-77000973/"}