Grace Dodge High School was designed in 1925 by CBJ Snyder. It is a prime example of the superior design of straightforward educational facilities dating from that period in New York City.

The use of large expanses of glass and well-ventilated classroom spaces, stemming from innovative plan forms (such as the U-shape used here), is joined to a simplified Elizabethan stylistic vocabulary. This vocabulary employs quatrefoil crenellations, string courses and ornamental herringbone and parquet brick patterns to achieve its effect.

The original building combined these elements to evoke the image of a monumental English country house and applied this image to the functional needs of an exploding urban school population, creating the impression of a palace of learning. The addition to the building of 1953 shows how far this ability to inspire through civic architecture was compromised by the functionalism of the mid-twentieth century.

The building was in dilapidated condition by 2001 and required a six million dollar full renovation involving roofs, windows, exterior doors and entrances, masonry, terracotta and parapets. New aluminum windows continue the mullionated effect of the original design; masonry is re-pointed and rebuilt in many areas of deterioration with control joints, parapets were rebuilt and large quantities of terracotta throughout the structure that were cracked and deteriorated were replaced with new, using models based on the original pieces. The effect is to restore the building to its noble but modest presence at the intersection of Crotona Avenue and Fordham Road, an important crossroads at the southern tip of the Bronx Botanical Gardens.

While ambitious historical buildings are often singled out for preservation (and rightly so), it is important that buildings like Grace Dodge High School be recognized as a model of responsible institutional building for not-so-extravagant purposes.