Formative Years
In June of 1914 Greek immigrant Victor Charas began construction of a vaudeville theater on Hanover Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. The building was designed by the architectural firm Leon Lempert & Son of Rochester, New York and construction was performed by general contractor Henry Macropol. The result was the Palace Theatre, which opened on April 9, 1915. In addition to the theater, the construction included storefront space for shops, restaurants, or offices in what was dubbed the Athens Building, a name recalling Charas' birthplace. Victor Charas, Edward Toompas, and John D. Pappas formed the Palace Theater Realty Company to handle the leasing of these spaces.
The second floor of the Athens Building, with a street address of 88 Hanover Street, was quickly rented and became the Chung Mee Restaurant Company, which billed itself as a “High-Class Chinese-American Restaurant.” Chung Mee’s occupied 88 Hanover Street until January of 1932 when it moved to a new location at 9 Amherst Street.
In the spring of 1932, accountants Joseph F. Moran and Harry A. B. Shapiro were seeking a location for their planned accounting and secretarial school. The dining spaces at 88 Hanover Street were appropriately sized for classrooms, and the location was in keeping with the typical approach to locating private business schools in visible and accessible downtown areas. Three rooms were rented in May of 1932 providing Moran and Shapiro with one classroom for accounting, one for secretarial science, and an office.
Adjacent spaces at 88 Hanover Street were occupied by a variety of businesses, such as an insurance agent, dance studio, music store, and shoeworkers’ union. As the 1930s wore on the school began to grow. Other businesses left the second floor and the school expanded into those locations. A May 1939 press release announced:
"The New Hampshire School of Accounting and Finance is preparing another expansion program to keep pace with the constantly growing demand for quality business training. Last season, it became necessary to nearly double the school's floor space due to a substantial increase in enrollments."
By 1944, with the departure of the New Hampshire Shoeworkers' Union, the school occupied the entire second floor of the Athens Building, with 8 classrooms and offices.
Entries from the school’s ledger book from 1943 show that the school was paying $150.00 per month for rent to the Palace Theater Company.
Jean Silver’s description of the shorthand classroom in the late 1950s sheds some light on the nature of the spaces occupied by the school:
“All four levels were taught during the same period. With the cooperation of the students, we worked it out. However, there was no air conditioning in the building, so during hot months we sometimes went to a nearby park and sat around the statue or under the trees and they took shorthand dictation there. Very often we drew a small crowd of onlookers. If the park was too busy, we would take chairs out on the back roof.
In the summertime, typing classes were a problem. Adding body heat to the heat from the Selectrics, made the room seem like a sauna. Perspiration would be streaming down the foreheads of the students, but this did not deter them.”
In 1956 the space at 88 Hanover Street was detailed as follows: 4 large classrooms, 2 small classrooms, 1 recreation room, 3 offices, lockers, and lounges.
The second floor location of the school created accessibility challenges. The school had contracts with the State of New Hampshrie's Department of Education starting in 1938 for the vocational training of the disabled, and the number of students with disabilities increased during World War II when disabled veterans began to enroll under the G.I. Bill. Students who could not climb the stairs were carried by their classmates.
During the early years of the school, most students commuted to the campus. There were, however, a few students from more remote parts of the state or further away who required living accommodations. The 1938-39 school bulletin stated that “All students must either reside at home, with relatives, or approved hotels or lodging houses.” A catalog, c. 1948, provided a bit more detail: “Students may reside either at home, with relatives, in private homes, at the Y.M.C.A. or the Y.W.C.A., or at approved hotels or lodging houses.” The 1958-59 catalog adds the Hampshire House to the list of approved housing and describes a home-residence plan “under which they [students] do light housework in exchange for their board, room and a small salary.”
Gertrude Shapiro described this home-residency plan:
“Often students from out of town were placed with families as mother's helpers. They would get board and room and a small salary of between $5-$15. The situation was both good and bad. They did not always get along with their families. On the other hand, it worked well because otherwise they would not have been able to go to School.”
The school’s 2nd floor storefront location did not provide significant space for recreation or extracurricular activities. As those activities developed in the late 1930s the school took advantage of the variety of facilities available in the Manchester area. Local hotels, especially the Carpenter Hotel, had function facilities as did the Derryfield and Manchester Country Clubs, and the Calumet Club. These facilities were used for dances, banquets, and commencement exercises. During and shortly after World War II, possibly as a cost saving measure when attendance was low, most functions were held in the school with desks and seating piled to one side to create adequate floor space.
Winter and summer outings were held annually, with The Elms in Goff’s Falls the typical winter location and Bear Brook State park and Canobie Lake among those used in the summer. Early baseball games were held at Derryfield and Livingston Parks, and the few recorded early basketball games were held on the road. I the early 1950s home basketball games were played in the gym at the Grenier Field Air Base or at St. Joseph's grammar school.