Friends Select School - History

History

Friends Select School, FSS, traces its history to the founding of the first Friends school managed directly by the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia in 1689. Friends Select has existed in its current form since 1833 and has been at its present location since 1885. In 1832, a committee was appointed to set up two select schools. In January 1833, a Select School for Boys opened in the meetinghouse on Orange Street and a Select School for Girls opened in the meeting house on Twelfth Street. In 1885, a new school building on Sixteenth Street above Arch was nearing completion with a capacity for 60 scholars of each sex in the upper schools, and of twenty in each of the Primaries. In 1866, the boys' select school and the girls' select school moved to Sixteenth and Cherry (same location as Seventeenth and Parkway - in 1886 the Parkway had not been constructed).

Built on the site of what was originally a Quaker burial ground (the entire block), remains were re-interred elsewhere to accommodate construction of the Parkway and site buildings. A modern gymnasium was added in the 1950s. In the 1960s, it was decided to construct a new school building on the same site. For approximately a year and a half, the school relocated and classes were held at the Central Branch of the YMCA, about two blocks away, first on the third floor for the 1967-8 school year, then on the fourth floor for the fall of the 1968-9 school year. Construction had proceeded far enough for classes to move into the current school building when Christmas break ended following New Year's Day, 1969. The Class of 1967 was the last class to graduate from the old school building, the Class of 1968 graduated from the YMCA location, and the Class of 1969 was the first class to graduate from the current school building.

As built, it had (and still has) an office building on the south portion of the land (FSS owns the entire city block on which both structures are located). This building was originally leased to the Pennsalt Chemicals Corporation (later PennWalt) on a 99-year lease to help finance construction of the current school building. In 2068, the office building and the land on which it stands will revert back to FSS. ExcelleRX is its tenant as of January 2012.