Church Street School for Music and Art
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The Church Street School for Music and Art is Tribeca's only non profit school for the arts and is an institution that has served the downtown and outer community since 1990. It is located in Manhattan, New York.
The school was founded in 1990 by director Lisa Ecklund-Flores and past director Lauri Bailey. Since then, it has relocated from Church Street on Canal to a larger Warren Street residence. Church Street School offers private instrumental lessons, preschool programs, and classes in arts, pilates, and Alexander Technique.
The "Cow" originally served as the school mascot but has seemed to disappear over the past years. No further explanation for the Cow as the initial mascot has been provided, but it is assumed that it was chosen simply due to the fact that former director Bailey had had an affinity for the animal. While the school was once able to boast a cow shaped garbage can and chalkboard located in the lobby, it seems that the only traces (a foam squishy cow and a mooing cow mechanism) of "Cow" can be found in a secluded upstairs office.
Church Street School is also recognized for its breakthroughs in the field of divination; many a student has selected a fortune from a yellow receptacle in said upstairs office. These fortunes brought such philosophical proverbs as "Gurf" to mainstream attention.
The school partakes in an annual artistic ritual, in which slabs of gingerbread are imported from a "private compound in the wilds of Pennsylvania," said Director Emeritus Lauri Bailey. In this ceremonial activity, students are encouraged to construct elaborate designs using a plethora of unconventional materials.
A recent achievement of the school was the holding of its first student run fundraiser, the "Hanon Marathon," held in May of 2006. The event focused on the competitive playing of Charles-Louis Hanon finger exercises and was considered to be an extremely lavish occasion, featuring an overture composed by two illustrious Church Street School students.
