Downtown Community School
The Downtown Community School was an American experimental, cooperative, racially integrated school located on 235 East 11th Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. The school was founded in 1944 and closed in 1971.
Notable school reformer and folklorist, Norman Studer, was the director from 1950 to 1970.
In the early 1950s, the school employed a music teacher who had been blacklisted because of his refusal to cooperate with the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Unable to get concerts because of the blacklist, Pete Seeger was hired to teach singing.
In 1963, the school arranged to teach a group of African-American students who were protesting their assignment to a racially segregated school.
