The North Bennet Street School held a grand opening and ribbon cutting with Mayor Thomas M. Menino at its newly renovated campus location formerly used as the City’s printing plant and police station on North Street in Boston’s North End.
Replacing the garage that connected the properties is a new welcoming atrium entrance. NBSS has spent the last year in a phased move-in as it completed the renovation. The new campus extends from the Greenway on North and Cross Streets and wraps around to Richmond Street. Through a series of transactions in 2012 with the City of Boston, NBSS swapped its old properties in the North End (plus a cash infusion) in exchange for the new real estate. Its former buildings are currently being renovated for an expansion of the Eliot K-8 Innovation School.
For NBSS, the expanded campus allows it to “bring home” students and programs previously located in the suburbs and around the city. The total project is estimated to have cost $25.4 million.
Established in 1885 as a social-service and career-training center, North Bennet Street School (www.nbss.edu) is a North End institution and one of the country’s leading schools devoted to the teaching and preservation of traditional craftsmanship. Craft programs include carpentry, furniture making, bookbinding, piano repair, violin making, locksmithing, jewelry making and repair. The school regularly draws students from across the U.S. and around the world. A key part of its mission is to provide job skills to the working poor.
