The school was built in 1874 and dedicated on January 15, 1875.[2]
It was named after Samuel Morse, credited as one of the main contributors to the invention of the telegraph. The school originally served an area of German, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh immigrants, who floated a $66,000 bond issue in order to build the school.[3]
The school closed in 1979 and was sold to the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, which converted it to a 70-unit senior housing facility called Morse Gardens. The former school building houses 30 apartments, while the other 40 are in a five-story addition which replaced a former school annex building.[4]
The Morse School is a three-story brick building in the Italianate style. It was designed by Welsh-American architect Thomas D. Evans (1844–1903), who was particularly known for school buildings.[5] It has been speculated that Evans also designed the Springfield Public School in the Strip District based on the similarity between the two buildings.[6]
The front elevation is seven bays wide, with a projecting, three-bay center section. The original front entrance is set behind an arcade of three pointed arches supported by Corinthian columns. The gable above the main entrance is marked with a stone bearing the name of the school. The windows are arched, with Italianate trim. The roof is hipped with central gables on three sides and a prominent cornice. The original belfry has been removed, but the school bell is still displayed inside the building.[3]
The interior of the school had thirteen classrooms, along with a third-floor auditorium, organized around intersecting central hallways with a stairwell at either end. During the conversion to residential use, each classroom was turned into two one-bedroom apartments and the hallways were opened up into a three-story atrium.[3]
