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}} The Alternative Center for Excellence (ACE), formerly the Alternative Center for Education, is located in the former Locust Avenue School at 26 Locust Avenue in Danbury, Connecticut, United States. It is an alternative high school within the city's school system, meant for at-risk students. The building itself, a brick Romanesque Revival structure, was designed by architect Warren R. Briggs in 1896, and later featured in his book ''Modern American School Buildings''.〔 and (''Accompanying 16 photos, exterior and interior, from 1984'' )〕 For many years it was an elementary school, and a laboratory school where recent graduates of the state's teacher training schools were sent to hone their skills with actual students before going to their ultimate teaching jobs. Today it is the last nineteenth-century school building remaining in Danbury, and one of the few remaining laboratory school buildings in the state. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.〔 ==Building== The school occupies a lot at the north end of the block formed by Locust, Ninth and Roberts avenues in an otherwise residential neighborhood. Western Connecticut State University, formerly the Danbury State Normal School where the teachers at the school were trained in its laboratory era, is a block to the west. Downtown Danbury is a mile (1.6 km) to the west-southwest, and Danbury Hospital is to the northwest along Locust.〔 The terrain is level. Paved parking lots abut the school on the south and west. The entire site is landscaped, with trees planted shortly after the school was opened to honor veterans of the Spanish–American War.〔 The building itself is a two-story structure of common bond orange-red brick on a raised basement topped by a slate-shingled hip roof. Modillioned galvanized sheet metal is along the eaves. At the top of the roof is an orange wooden cupola with octagonal rounded roof supported by round arches with keys and surrounded by a balustrade with chamfered newels and pointed finials. A stone water table runs around the building at the level of the top of the entrance steps.〔 On both east and west facades are a nearly identical projecting two-story pavilion with a central pediment with returns. The centrally located entrances, reached by a set of stone steps, are double doors in concentric recessed round arches. A projecting bay window on the west side, facing Roberts Avenue, is the only difference between the two.〔 Inside both entrances lead into vestibules with hooks for hanging coats. Four classrooms are on each floor, two on each side of the central hall, with three-foot (1 m) wainscoting of tongue and groove North Carolina pine. Partitions within the rooms are all brick. Each is lit by six tall windows and floored in pine similar to the wainscoting. The blackboards above the wainscoting have their original turned trim.〔 The supporting beams in the ceilings are exposed. They are reinforced at the joints by cast iron columns with decorative floral bases. Also exposed along the upper walls are the copper heating pipes with their original brass fittings run; spaces in the ceiling above that originally helped to ventilate the building have been boarded over to comply with modern fire codes.〔 In the basement, designed to be fully functional, windows provide similar natural illumination. Brick partitions are pierced with rounded arches, and large brick piers with corbeled tops support the ceiling. The walls are decorated with student artwork. The cooking facilities, sink and bathroom stalls are all original. The original 1894 Gurney furnace remains in operation to supplement the modern furnace.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alternative Center for Excellence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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