Garfield School is a 1936 WPA-funded public school at 2612 Wyoming Street in Benton Park West, designed by architect George A. Sanger. The three-story brick building replaced an 1883 Romanesque Revival school that had served the neighborhood's German immigrant community for over fifty years. Now known as Garfield Place Apartments, the building provides permanent supportive housing for adults experiencing homelessness.
The Garfield School site has been a center of public education in Benton Park West since 1883, when the original building was constructed in the Romanesque Revival style to serve the neighborhood's growing German immigrant population. A second building in the Second Empire style was added in the 1890s to accommodate expanding enrollment. By the 1930s, both structures were considered outdated. Under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Works Progress Administration funded a replacement school as part of its nationwide public works program. Architect George A. Sanger designed the new building, completed in 1936 at a cost of $237,363. A photograph taken in July 1937 shows the original 1883 structure still standing beside the new school; both predecessors were demolished shortly after. The St. Louis Public Schools closed Garfield Elementary in 2003 following years of declining enrollment. Peter & Paul Community Services acquired the vacant 42,000-square-foot building in 2012 and undertook an $8.5 million rehabilitation designed by Gina Hilberry of Cohen Hilberry Architects, converting it into 25 units of permanent supportive housing. The project, completed in 2014, won the Landmarks Association of St. Louis's Most Enhanced award in 2015. PPCS continues to operate the building as Garfield Place Apartments, providing housing and services for adults with severe mental illness who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
