Man Hunt (P.S. 186 story)

Who would think that an abandoned building could serve so many purposes.

This old abandoned building (P.S. 186) served as an elementary school to the community members from 1903 to 1975 when it was closed because of fire code violations. From 1975 - 2012 the building stood as an eye sore in the community, a daunting 8 story building that rose up above all others in the neighborhood a very imposing figure. The building stood for the 8 years previous as a reminder of the great acheivements in the neighborhood and great dissapointments.

A group of kids from age eight to eleven years old used the school yard of this abandoned school, P.S. 186 to play stick ball from 1986 - 1995, basically using the school as a play ground in a neighborhood that didnt offer many activities for young children looking to burn of energy. Even though the kids used brooms to clean the school yard as best they could, there was always the possiblity one of them could slip on broken glass, or trip on a brick that had fallen from the abandoned structure. On one ocassion one of the kids (Neil) tripped on a rock, fell and chipped his tooth. The building was dangerouse but the next day the kids were back at it again playing stick ball. The danger was worth the price. The alternative was sitting in the house all day doing chores, and who wanted to live that kind of life. Stick ball was their joy, and pleasure and no person or thing was going to stand in there way, especially not a dangerous condemed building, that facilitated the only real opportunity to be free with no parental supervision. The kids played stick ball for nine years, and the worst thing that happened was Neil chipping his tooth. I think they did very well.

The building itself served as a place to play tag and manhunt when stickball became boring. Manhunt was a cool way of saying tag, but changing the name to make it sound more grown up. Manhunt was just like tag. but the game was played in a more intense environment, like an abandoned building thats falling apart, has no electricity, mice crawling around, and the occasional pigeon flying across the ceiling. The building was pretty dangerous.

In man hunt once you find where the other other person is hiding, you basically capture them, then that person is on your team. The more people you find the larger the man hunt team gets until you find everyone. Once everyone has been captured the game is over. But the intrigue was not nessesarily in the game, but the environment. The building was dark, and because of the sheer size of it, had many undiscovered corners. The game pushed us to be a little more adventourus and go into different compartments that we would not normally explore. I always wondered what kind of spirits lived in these buildings. Was there a muderer hiding in the shadows looking for young boys to kidnap. You never know, this was New York.

Every game of manhunt was a new adventure, and somewhat scary. Bums sometimes slept in the schoolyard and you never knew of one of them decided to take up residence in the building. There was one occasion when we went into the building to explore and we saw a dark figure standing on the other side of the room and a friend screemed out "its a ghost run!", and we took of running. We ran until we were over the wall and out of the school yard. Im sure it was just a neighbor hood bum or just our imagination. It didnt matter because we enjoyed the adrenaline rush and the thrill.

P.S. 186 long after it closed as a public school served many purposes. The most important one was allowing some young neighborhood kids the opportunity to be creative and explore.