Packer Collegiate Institute

Packer Collegiate Institute is an independent, private, college preparatory school for students from prekindergarten through grade 12. Formerly the Brooklyn Female Academy, Packer has been located at 170 Joralemon Street in the historic district of Brooklyn Heights since its founding in 1845.

After a fire destroyed the school on January 1, 1853, Harriet Putnam Packer (1820-1892), the widow of William S. Packer, a former trustee offered $65,000 to rebuild the school, provided it be renamed for her late husband. At the time, this was the largest gift ever made for the higher education of women. An extension to the main building, designed by the noted architect of Brooklyn churches, Minard LaFever, opened in November, 1854.

From 1919 to 1972 the school also operated a junior college. Packer abolished the college in 1972 after it accepted male students and became co-educational.

Packer is the oldest independent school in Brooklyn. Its nearly 1,000 students, including grades preschool to 12th, represent all five boroughs of New York City and parts of New Jersey and its campus contains over 65 classrooms, two libraries, two gymnasiums, a fitness center, a theater, a dance studio, a dining commons, and a Gothic Revival Chapel with notable stained glass windows designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The campus of Packer contains a large open courtyard, two playgrounds, and a basketball court. The former St. Ann's Church has been renovated and transformed into a new space for the middle school. The new space opened in the 2003/2004 school year. Packer has a laptop program as well. Every student grades 5th through 12th owns a laptop and uses it both inside and outside the classroom. The middle school uses Apple computers and the high school uses Dells. Also, this is the school that the television show, Gossip Girl, takes place in.

Notable alumni

* Elizabeth Gaffney - Author - "Metropolis"
* Mary White Ovington (1890) - Civil rights leader, author - Co-founder and Executive Secretary of the NAACP
* Lois Lowry (1956) - Author - "Number the Stars" and "The Giver"
* Shelby White (1957) - Author, art collector, benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with late husband Leon Levy)
* Barbara Severy Wellington Winthrop (1965) - Talented Chef, Entrepreneur and poet
* Alison Blackman Dunham aka. "Advice Sister Alison" 1972-a life & career expert, writer, creator of the Advice Sisters "Great Relationships" web sites and credited with bringing the advice/information genre, online (as described in the academic textbook: Marriage and Family Experience: Relationships Changing Society 8th Edition by Bryan Strong, Christine DeVault, Theodore F. Cohen, 2004)
* Rosanna Scotto (1976) - Television News Anchor - FOX 5 News, New York City
* Malcolm D. Lee (1988) - Director, "Roll Bounce, Everybody Hates Chris" and "Undercover Brother"
* Ethan Hawke (1983}- Actor "'Reality Bites'", Dead Poets Society'", author Ash Wednesday'", musician, producer and oscar-nominated screenwriter
* Jesse Hartman (2000}- Famous Tutor and student of television

External links

Packer's website: [http://www.Packer.edu www.packer.edu]