History
One of the oldest independent schools in New York City, the Berkeley Carroll School has a long and illustrious history. Though officially chartered by New York State on April 12, 1886 as a school for the education of young ladies, the school can trace its origins to 1883, the year that the Brooklyn Bridge was opened, and to a series of informal classes held by the Rev. Alfred C. Roe for neighborhood children in a “double villa” on Lincoln Place. In the fall of 1885, Mr. Roe, discouraged by his struggle against financial odds, asked a group of public-spirited men if they would assume financial oversight of the school, and a year later the Berkeley Institute, named for Bishop George Berkeley, an Irishman who was an early supporter of higher education in the American colonies, opened its doors to 55 children. At the time, much of Brooklyn was still farmland, but Park Slope had emerged as a fine residential neighborhood, easily accessible by five street car lines, so “the expense and annoyances of travel in crowded horse cars can be avoided,” in the words of the school’s first brochure.
One of the eight founding schools of the Parents’ League in 1913, by the 1920s, the Berkeley Institute had developed an outstanding reputation, with graduating seniors receiving automatic entry into many fine women’s colleges: Vassar, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, and Radcliffe, among others.
