The City Island Nautical Museum is housed in the school building designed by C.B.J. Snyder and built by the city of New York in 1897–98. It opened as P. S. 102 but was renumbered P.S. 17 in 1903. The school graduated students at the end of the eighth grade; for several years, there were graduations in both January and June.

In 1976 the school was closed and students now attend P.S. 175 at 200 City Island Avenue. The site, formerly the Nevins Shipyard, was coincidentally the location of the first City Island school, built in 1839 when the number of children taught by resident Rachel Fordham grew too large for her to teach in her home on Fordham Street.

The second schoolhouse was built in 1860, subsequently replaced by a police station, and then torn down to create Hawkins Park (named for Island resident Leonard Hawkins, a World War I veteran, for whom the American Legion Post on the Island is also named).