The James R. Ludlow School is an historic American K-8 elementary school within the School District of Philadelphia. It is located in the Yorktown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The school building is a Gothic Revival structure that was designed by architect Irwin T. Catharine (1883–1944) and built between 1926 and 1927. It is a heavily constructed, three-story brick building, nine bays wide with projecting end bays, and was created in the Late Gothic Revival-style. Like many similarly-designed Gothic Revival schools in Philadelphia, it features rib vault, heavily tiled corridors, and a stone entrance pavilion with a Tudor-arched opening.[2]
The school was named for the Honorable James Reilly Ludlow, or “Judge Ludlow” (1825-1886), president judge of the Court of Common Pleas, No. 3, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.[3]
Ludlow School is located near the National Shrine of St. John Neumann, and near Philadelphia’s up-and-coming Fishtown neighborhood. St. John Neumann was a Bishop of Philadelphia who largely organized and expanded Philadelphia's diocesan school system.