In a characteristically Victorian manner, the simple shed-roofed porch of this school makes rhetoric of simple structure and function. The shed roof folds into a gable hood over the stairs; pairs of chamfered posts and bracketing extend the hood toward the visitor; diagonal struts on either side provide triangular fields for cut-stencil ornament and tongue-and-groove boarding. It makes a little ceremony of the act of entering this otherwise plain brick building, relieved, except at its door, only by a bracketed cornice and a minuscule belfry. Whereas the later Kendrick Avenue School (
WO3) responded to a specific program of school requirements—differentiating the central classroom block from the entrances, articulating current preoccupations with sexual difference, and providing a conspicuous tower for the school bell—the older Grove Street School proclaims no more than its general institutional character. Still in use, it has been thoroughly remodeled inside.