It’s truly the upper class.
At the tip of February, Friends Seminary, a $63,200-a-year private Quaker school on East sixteenth Street, unveiled a $3.9 million art installation on its roof.
The Skyspace by James Turrell is a jewel box room where light from windows and artificial sources are mixed together to stunning effect.
There are only 85 Skyspaces on this planet, and the one at Friends, where students range from kindergarteners to high schoolers, is the just one at a faculty that isn’t a university.
Insiders say the art installation, which is open to the general public on select Fridays, is the newest shot fired as NYC private schools compete to supply increasingly lavish amenities.
“There is completely an arms race,” an academic consultant told The Post. “You might have parents paying over $60,000 to send their kids to non-public schools. That’s an enormous ask. And they typically want the most effective bang for the buck.”
Turrell’s work is in top museums world wide and is beloved by celebrities. Kendall Jenner has a $750,000 Turrell sculpture in her Beverly Hills home, while Kanye West and Zynga mobile games founder Mark Pincus have donated hundreds of thousands to fund the artist’s life’s work — Roden Crater — a large piece, 40 years within the making, that’s carved out of an extinct volcano within the Arizona desert.
But, the 80-year-old art-world star can also be a quaker who used to live near Friends and worship on its campus. He proposed the project and donated his time and one other artwork, which was sold at Christie’s for $187,500, to assist offset the $3.9 million in construction costs.
Friends’s president, Robert Lauder, fundraised the remaining hundreds of thousands and thinks the Skyspace has the potential to attract in families who may not have otherwise considered the varsity.
“[It shows them that] this school values creativity — at a time when some schools are cutting back on those sorts of programs,” he told The Recent York Times.
The academic consultant said that some amenities at town’s toniest K-through-12 institutions are more about bragging rights than artistic expression.
“Parents wish to go to cocktail parties and gloat,” she said. “It could be an interesting family that uses the Turrell as a calling card. But [others] will say something like, ‘Your kids could also be going to the varsity that’s rated primary in town, but our youngsters are going to the varsity with the most effective and newest swimming pool …’ When you should not fortunate enough to have a vacation home, a swimming pool is an enormous deal in Recent York City.”
She identified that, in 2017, Riverdale Country School, where tuition is $54,545, unveiled a six-lane swimming pool that’s a murals unto itself. Designed by PBDW Architects, who also did Equinox’s swank Greenwich Village flagship and worked on the restoration of John Jacob Astor IV’s Rhinebeck estate, it’s built right into a cliff with glass partitions that afford picturesque views.
Meanwhile, the Upper West Side’s Calhoun School (annual tuition $63,500), is known for its gourmet lunches, courtesy of a team of chefs that has included alums of the French Culinary Institute, ABC Cocina and Momofuku.
“They’ve essentially the most amazing food on Earth,” gushed the consultant, who went on to imply that this has not been lost on the competition. “It’s been a model for a variety of lunch [programs].”
On the Upper East Side, the Nightingale-Bamford School (annual tuition $61,655) unveiled a state-of-the-art, professional-level black box theater seven years ago, courtesy of the Lauder cosmetics family.
Nearby, the Dalton School (tuition $61,120) opened its Engineering and Design Center in 2019. It has a array of high-tech fabrication tools, including a 3D printer, to serve the varsity’s six robotics teams
Sportier types might prefer Grace Church School ($62,270 per yr) on the sting of the East Village. There, a $15-million gymnasium, constructed within the late 2010s, encompasses a batting cage and a golf simulator.
To not be outdone, the Chapin School (tuition $62,500) did an enormous gym renovation in 2021. Amenities include a rooftop playing field, a double-height gym with a running track and a treatment room with giant whirlpool tubs and ultrasound and electrical stimulation machines.
A pair of full-time trainers are readily available to cope with game-related maladies.
While the sports medicine wizardry may sound impressive, the consultant can’t help but query the utility.
“When you can afford private school tuition, wouldn’t you send your kids to the highest specialists for medical rehab?” she asked. “Plus, how much of that cost could have gone to education?”
It’s truly the upper class.
At the tip of February, Friends Seminary, a $63,200-a-year private Quaker school on East sixteenth Street, unveiled a $3.9 million art installation on its roof.
The Skyspace by James Turrell is a jewel box room where light from windows and artificial sources are mixed together to stunning effect.
There are only 85 Skyspaces on this planet, and the one at Friends, where students range from kindergarteners to high schoolers, is the just one at a faculty that isn’t a university.
Insiders say the art installation, which is open to the general public on select Fridays, is the newest shot fired as NYC private schools compete to supply increasingly lavish amenities.
“There is completely an arms race,” an academic consultant told The Post. “You might have parents paying over $60,000 to send their kids to non-public schools. That’s an enormous ask. And they typically want the most effective bang for the buck.”
Turrell’s work is in top museums world wide and is beloved by celebrities. Kendall Jenner has a $750,000 Turrell sculpture in her Beverly Hills home, while Kanye West and Zynga mobile games founder Mark Pincus have donated hundreds of thousands to fund the artist’s life’s work — Roden Crater — a large piece, 40 years within the making, that’s carved out of an extinct volcano within the Arizona desert.
But, the 80-year-old art-world star can also be a quaker who used to live near Friends and worship on its campus. He proposed the project and donated his time and one other artwork, which was sold at Christie’s for $187,500, to assist offset the $3.9 million in construction costs.
Friends’s president, Robert Lauder, fundraised the remaining hundreds of thousands and thinks the Skyspace has the potential to attract in families who may not have otherwise considered the varsity.
“[It shows them that] this school values creativity — at a time when some schools are cutting back on those sorts of programs,” he told The Recent York Times.
The academic consultant said that some amenities at town’s toniest K-through-12 institutions are more about bragging rights than artistic expression.
“Parents wish to go to cocktail parties and gloat,” she said. “It could be an interesting family that uses the Turrell as a calling card. But [others] will say something like, ‘Your kids could also be going to the varsity that’s rated primary in town, but our youngsters are going to the varsity with the most effective and newest swimming pool …’ When you should not fortunate enough to have a vacation home, a swimming pool is an enormous deal in Recent York City.”
She identified that, in 2017, Riverdale Country School, where tuition is $54,545, unveiled a six-lane swimming pool that’s a murals unto itself. Designed by PBDW Architects, who also did Equinox’s swank Greenwich Village flagship and worked on the restoration of John Jacob Astor IV’s Rhinebeck estate, it’s built right into a cliff with glass partitions that afford picturesque views.
Meanwhile, the Upper West Side’s Calhoun School (annual tuition $63,500), is known for its gourmet lunches, courtesy of a team of chefs that has included alums of the French Culinary Institute, ABC Cocina and Momofuku.
“They’ve essentially the most amazing food on Earth,” gushed the consultant, who went on to imply that this has not been lost on the competition. “It’s been a model for a variety of lunch [programs].”
On the Upper East Side, the Nightingale-Bamford School (annual tuition $61,655) unveiled a state-of-the-art, professional-level black box theater seven years ago, courtesy of the Lauder cosmetics family.
Nearby, the Dalton School (tuition $61,120) opened its Engineering and Design Center in 2019. It has a array of high-tech fabrication tools, including a 3D printer, to serve the varsity’s six robotics teams
Sportier types might prefer Grace Church School ($62,270 per yr) on the sting of the East Village. There, a $15-million gymnasium, constructed within the late 2010s, encompasses a batting cage and a golf simulator.
To not be outdone, the Chapin School (tuition $62,500) did an enormous gym renovation in 2021. Amenities include a rooftop playing field, a double-height gym with a running track and a treatment room with giant whirlpool tubs and ultrasound and electrical stimulation machines.
A pair of full-time trainers are readily available to cope with game-related maladies.
While the sports medicine wizardry may sound impressive, the consultant can’t help but query the utility.
“When you can afford private school tuition, wouldn’t you send your kids to the highest specialists for medical rehab?” she asked. “Plus, how much of that cost could have gone to education?”
