School 75, at 99 Monroe Street, was one of 77 public elementary schools in Buffalo in 1940, when this photograph was taken by Hauser Bob. Hilga Castren was the principal, according to the photograph inscription. Built in 1925, the 95,000 square foot school was erected at a cost of $300,000 during Buffalo’s largest public school construction boom, when 24 schools were built over ten years.

About 92,000 students attended Buffalo public schools in 1940. Since then, enrollment has declined by 63 percent to 34,000 students, a result of the loss of households with school-age children and, more recently, a rise in enrollment at charter schools. School 75, located in the census tract that has lost more population than any other—89 percent since 1950—is one of several vacant civic and ecclesiastical structures in this East Side neighborhood. It was last used as a school, built for some 500 pupils, in 1978.

Buffalo had 103 public schools in 1940, and 57 today. Many have been demolished, others are for sale or have been reused, and still others are in real estate limbo—closed, unused, but not for sale. School 75 was transferred to the City of Buffalo Real Estate Division in 2002, and has remained on the market ever since. The City—which maintains a “lock and leave” policy regarding these vacant assets—lacks the resources to properly mothball them. As former schools elsewhere in Buffalo are reused for offices and apartments, School 75—only one mile from downtown—remains forgotten.

Image courtesy of The Buffalo History Museum. Used by permission.