The Yellow Brick Road houses many of JRC's major reward areas - areas which are designed to motivate improvement in the students' academics as well as behavior. It is located in our 250 Turnpike Street building.

After entering the building, you pass through the Haziza Reception area, named after the Israeli artist who designed the octagonal reception desk and all of the decorations in this room.

The flowers in the ceiling are made from acrylic and were inspired by the glass flowers in the reception area of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

After leaving the reception area and heading toward the Yellow Brick Road, a visitor receives this happy greeting from Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, both of whom guard the entrance to the Black and White Hallway.

The Yellow Brick Road takes its theme from the movie "The Wizard of Oz." Just as Dorothy's world was all black and white until she entered Oz, the visitor first passes through this Black and White hallway with black and white photos of JRC students before reaching a set of Grand Doors (end of corridor) that open into the colorful Yellow Brick Road.

When you open the Grand Doors you see the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road and, in the niche directly across the road, a talking and moving mannequin of the Wizard of Oz who automatically and warmly welcomes you to Oz.

Entering the Yellow Brick Road, you see the beautiful good witch Glinda (on the right), Wizard of Oz (across the Road, in the alcove), the Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Wicked Witch. All of the mannequins on the Road move their arms and lips and talk and sing, welcoming you to the Road, and encouraging you to visit the various areas that are situated on the Road.

The Road passes by Dorothy and Toto who seem to be walking in a beautiful, snow-covered Crystal Forest that is bathed in soft pink light. The all-knowing Zoltar (in the booth at the far right) has incongruously found his way into the Crystal Forest where he hands out fortune cards to visitors who approach him and press his button.

The Yellow Brick Road runs from one end of the building to the other and includes all of the major reward areas for the students. The part of the Road shown here includes the Emerald City Cinema, Big Reward Arcade, Lindsley Auditorium and Whimsy Room (a party room). The Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow can be seen on the right.

This is a view of the other end of the Road. This part of the Road contains the Snack Bar, Teen Lounge/Arcade, Contract Store (a gift shop), Hair Salon, Fitness Gym (with exercise machines), Library and Basketball Court.

The Big Reward Store contains a merry-go-round, electronic games, a ball pit, pinball machines, ping pong table, snack machines, and a lounge area. This Reward Store is especially designed to be a lot of fun for our developmentally disabled students.

The Ball Pit is one of the most attractive features of the Big Reward Store.

The Ogden R. Lindsley Auditorium has been used for events such as these: magic, clown and reptile shows; motivational talks; nutrition and health lectures; and President Obama's 2009 talk to the nation's school children.

 

This conference room adjoins the Lindsley Auditorium, and is often used by visiting parents.

The Whimsy Room, which is filled to the gills with colorful art pieces and funky furniture, is where students and staff enjoy receptions, parties and other special events.

This view of the Whimsy Room shows a vigorous horse race in progress on the top right wall and a band of dog-headed musicians playing jazz on the stairwell.

 

This room is often used for the food buffets when lunches are held in the adjoining Whimsy Room.

A marquee with running lights announces the presence of the Emerald City Cinema, where students can watch movies and play music videos and play electronic games. Dorothy is in the left foreground. Across the way, the Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man can be seen to the left of the Cinema entrance.

As students watch a film on the full-wall screen, they can enjoy comfortable lounge chairs that can give them a massage, as well as snacks that they can purchase at the adjoining Snack Bar.

This Snack Bar connects to the Cinema and can be accessed from the Yellow Brick Road as well. Students can purchase popcorn, candy, hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, flavored waters, juices, Sno-Cones, etc.

Students can earn an opportunity to make an appointment at the Hair Salon, where they can get a haircut, hair styling or a manicure. The hair salon is also used for vocational training for students who which to pursue that line of work.

The Teen Lounge contains a pool table, video games (seen in rear), a dance machine, a big screen TV, an air hockey game, a chess and checkers game, a simulated motorcycle video game, and Guitar Hero (the students' favorite video game, seen on the right). This lounge was especially designed to appeal to our cognitively typical students.

 

Students are rewarded with points or money for showing improvements both in their academic work and in their behaviors.

One of the places where students can spend their points or money is in this in-house retail store.

We named it the "Contract Store" because the students also have to be passing their weekly behavioral contracts in order to earn the privilege of using it.

We go to national gift shows each year to select items for the store and pass on the wholesale prices we get to the students.

Jenn does a little window-shopping outside the Contract Store.

Sidney tries on a scarf and a ring in the Contract Store.

A favorite reward for many of our students is the opportunity to spend time in this Internet Cafe. Students can enjoy a cup of coffee while they surf the internet in a lounge with a tropical ambiance and Mexican artifacts.

A few students relax under the straw umbrella tables and colorful, tropical paper-mache birds of the Internet Café.

At the end of the Yellow Brick Road, a recording of the Wizard of Oz movie is projected on the wall and plays in a continuous loop. When the image of yellow brick road on the screen appears above the real yellow brick road in our school, the effect is magical. A talking mannequin of the Wicked Witch looks out menacingly from an alcove on the left.

Also located at the end of the Road is the Cassoria Athletic Center, which includes a fitness gym with exercise machines and a basketball court. The Center is named after a New York firefighter who lost his life on 9/11 and who was the brother of one of students.

One of the favorite activities of our students is to play basketball against a team composed of our staff members. The basketball court has a mural painted by Kip Frace, a New York artist, who used the hands, hand prints and thumb prints of our students to compose the mural.

This room serves as both our student library and as a conference room. Its conservative decor is a change of pace from the bright colors and unusual decorations of the other rooms on the street.

In addition to the Reward Areas, the Yellow Brick Road also has eight conference rooms each with a different decorative theme or artist. Many of the sculptures and art pieces in this room were designed by Debbie Brooks, a contemporary American artist who celebrates shopping in much of her art.

The sculptures and wall hangings in this room are all by Carlos and Albert, two very popular contemporary Mexican artists who work in the style of the famous Mexican artist Bustamante.

A contemporary American artist, Lana Garner, took ordinary dumpster covers and fashioned them into decorative sculptures each of which contains a representation of a different American city (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco). The covers are lit from behind with twinkling Christmas Tree lights.

All of the water color paintings in this room are by an Israeli artist, Patricia Govezensky, who studied under, and works in a modification of the style of, another even more famous Israeli artist, Tarkay.

The prints, ceramics and lithographs in this room are all by, or in the style of Marc Chagall, a Russian-French artist. One art critic characterized his work as "one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk."

One of our most unusual conference rooms is this "Lightbox" room, so-called because of the 3-dimensional images of birds and other animals that are lit from behind by light boxes which also provide all the light in the room.

The paintings in this room are all by Jon Planas, a contemporary New York artist. He is most famous for his hand-painted wine bottles, many of which are displayed on the etagere in this room. One of his hand-painted bottles was once the basis of a famous ad campaign for Asolut Vodka.

Here is perhaps our happiest conference room—the “Mickey” room, so-called after the name of a famous mouse seen in the prints, dolls, mirror and other sculptures of this room.