Schenley High School, located in the
North Oakland neighborhood at the edge of the
Hill District
The Hill District is a grouping of historically African American neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, "the Hill" was the cultural center of black life in the city and a major cent ...
in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, is a historic building opened in 1916 that was a part of the
Pittsburgh Public Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools is the public school district serving the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (except for two small parts served by the Baldwin-Whitehall School District) and adjacent Mount Oliver. As of the 2021–2022 school year, the ...
. The Schenley High School building was closed in June 2008 in a 5-4 vote by the school district due to issues with asbestos. Its staff and students were relocated the following year. The Schenley name was retired and its last class graduated in 2011. On February 28, 2013 the Pittsburgh School Board approved the sale of Schenley High School to the PMC Property Group of Philadelphia in a 5-4 vote.
The Schenley building is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
(NRHP Reference #86002706).
[ and the ]Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1964 to support the preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
In 1966, PHLF established the Revolving Fund for ...
Register. It is also a contributing property in the Schenley Farms Historic District
The Schenley Farms Historic District, also referred to as the Schenley Farms–Oakland Civic District, is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places that is located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ...
.
History
Schenley High School was named for Pittsburgh philanthropist Mary Schenley, on whose land the school was built. It was designed by Edward Stotz as a triangle with rounded corners and constructed of Indiana limestone, the best of its kind. Schenley was the first high school in the United States to cost more than one million dollars to build. When Schenley opened in 1916, there were 1800 students and 70 teachers. Through public donation a Skinner Pipe Organ was donated to the school, the organ remained in the auditorium until the closing of the school. The school published "The Triangle," a monthly student newspaper founded in 1919 and named for the building's original shape. The school's highest enrollment was 3012 in March 1940. Schenley sports teams won many city and state championships, including several state basketball titles in the 1970s. In 1983, the school was rededicated as the Schenley High School Teacher Center, an innovative program in which all of the district's teachers would cycle through Schenley to update methods. The program would be deemed successful enough to warrant a visit from then United States Secretary of Education
The United States secretary of education is the head of the United States Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States, and the federal government, on ...
William Bennet. In 1987, a new wing was added to the building.
Relocation and Closure
In June 2008, due to severe maintenance problems, school district Superintendent Mark Roosevelt
Mark Roosevelt (born December 10, 1955) is an American academic administrator and politician serving as the seventh president of the Santa Fe campus of St. John's College. He was the President of Antioch College from January 2011 to December 2 ...
proposed to close Schenley High School to avoid an extremely high renovation bill. This led to public opposition by students and historical organizations that felt the building was worth saving. After months of debate the school board voted 5-4 to close the school following the 2007-2008 school year. The staff and students were moved to the Reizenstein Middle School building, which had been closed a few years earlier. Freshmen, sophomores and juniors who were enrolled in Schenley at the time of its closure were allowed to graduate as Schenley students. Schenley's final class graduated on June 12, 2011. For future classes, Schenley was renamed to Obama Academy, and the Reizenstein building became a shared space for the two Schools from 2009-2011. Obama Academy, which found a permanent home in the former Peabody high school building beginning in the 2012-2013 school year, preserved much of Schenley's teaching staff throughout the transition, as well as the IB academic curriculum and award-winning musical theater program. Protests to save the original Schenley High building ultimately failed on February 27, 2013 when the Pittsburgh Public Schools board voted to 5-4 to sell the building to a developer who would convert the former school into luxury apartments.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
The Summer of 2014 saw the Schenley High School building play a starring role in the film ''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl'' is a 2012 debut novel written by Jesse Andrews. The novel was released in hardcover by Amulet Books on March 1, 2012, and in paperback on May 7, 2013.
Plot
Greg Gaines is a senior at Benson High School i ...
''. The film, based on the 2013 book written by Schenley graduate Jesse Andrews
Jesse Andrews (born September 15, 1982) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay for ''Luca'' and wrote both the novel and the feature-film adaptation of ''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl''.
Personal life
Andrews ...
, tells the tale of a Schenley senior who is dealing with coming of age while facing the possibility of losing a sick classmate. For the movie scenes were filmed throughout Schenley High School, including the auditorium and cafeteria. The school colors in the film, however, were changed from red and black to blue and gold. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
, where it broke records. Distributor Fox Searchlight
Searchlight Pictures, Inc. is an American film production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is part of the Walt Disney Company. Founded in 1994 as Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. for 20th Century Fox (later 20th Century St ...
purchased the rights to the film for an estimated 12 million dollars.
https://essaysonline.org/
Notable alumni
* William Albertson American Communist politician framed by the FBI
*Jesse Andrews
Jesse Andrews (born September 15, 1982) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay for ''Luca'' and wrote both the novel and the feature-film adaptation of ''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl''.
Personal life
Andrews ...
– novelist and screenwriter known for ''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
''Me and Earl and the Dying Girl'' is a 2012 debut novel written by Jesse Andrews. The novel was released in hardcover by Amulet Books on March 1, 2012, and in paperback on May 7, 2013.
Plot
Greg Gaines is a senior at Benson High School i ...
''
*Derrick Bell
Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011) was an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. Bell worked for first the U.S. Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 scho ...
– Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
's first African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
professor
*George Benson
George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...
– Jazz/R&B musician and recording artist
*DeJuan Blair
DeJuan Lamont Blair (born April 22, 1989) is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Pittsburgh Panthers from 2007 to 2009. Blair entered the 2009 NBA draft where he was selected as the 37th overall ...
– Washington Wizards
The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern Conference Southeast D ...
NBA player
* Larry Brown – Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
player
* Ray Brown – jazz musician
*Billy Cox
William Cox (born October 18, 1941) is an American bassist, best known for performing with Jimi Hendrix. Cox is the only surviving musician to have regularly played with Hendrix: first with the experimental group that backed Hendrix at Woodstoc ...
– bassist
A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...
who played with Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
*Frank Curto
Frank S. Curto (1898 or 1899 – February 23, 1971) was the chief horticulturist for the Pittsburgh Department of Parks and Recreation.
Curto received his Master of Science degree in ornamental horticulture from Ohio State University. His career ...
– chief horticulturist, Pittsburgh Dept. of Parks and Recreation
*Darnell Dinkins
Darnell Joseph Dinkins (born January 20, 1977) is a former American football coach and tight end. He played college football at the University of Pittsburgh Panthers football, Pittsburgh. In the NFL, Dinkins played for the New York Giants, Balti ...
– NFL player
* Ken Durrett – NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
player
* Walt Harper – jazz musician
* Philip Hershkovitz - mammalogist In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part ...
* Art Hyatt – NBL pro basketball player
* DeAndre Kane
DeAndre Kane (born June 10, 1989) is an American-born naturalized Hungarian professional basketball player for Grindavík in the Úrvalsdeild karla. He played college basketball at Marshall University and Iowa State University before playing pro ...
- basketball player in the Israeli Premier League
The Israeli Premier League ( he, ליגת העל, ''Ligat Ha`Al'', ), is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Israeli Football League – the state's league of Israel. The league is contested b ...
and EuroLeague
* D. J. Kennedy – NBA player
*Maurice Lucas
Maurice Lucas (February 18, 1952 – October 31, 2010) was an American professional basketball player who played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was a four-time NBA All-Star and won ...
– NBA player for 1977 champion Portland Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Con ...
* Robert Mosley – opera singer
*Bill Nunn
William Goldwyn Nunn III (October 20, 1953 – September 24, 2016) was an American actor known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's film ''Do the Right Thing'', Robbie Robertson in the Sam Raimi ''Spider-Man'' film trilogy and as Terre ...
– actor
*Bob Prince
Robert Ferris Prince (July 1, 1916 – June 10, 1985) was an American radio and television sportscaster and commentator, best known for his 28-year stint as the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball club, with whom he earned the ...
– Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...
play-by-play announcer
*Bruno Sammartino
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino (October 6, 1935 – April 18, 2018) was an Italian-born American professional wrestler, best known for his work with the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE). There, he held the WWWF World Heavywei ...
– Professional wrestler
* Raymond Saunders – Painter, Professor Emeritus
*Clifford Shull
Clifford Glenwood Shull (September 23, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – March 31, 2001) was a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist.
Biography
Shull attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, received his BS from Carnegie Institute of Tec ...
– Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
*Ted Stepien
Theodore J. Stepien (June 9, 1925 – September 10, 2007) was an American businessman who owned the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1980 to 1983. Born in Pittsburgh in 1925, he became wealthy as the founder ...
– Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers (often referred to as the Cavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland. The Cavaliers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Ea ...
owner from 1980–83
* Benjamin Tatar – actor
*Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He began his career playing R&B for Earl Bostic and later soul jazz recording for the Blue Note label from 1960, touched on jazz fusion dur ...
– jazz musician
*Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
– iconic artist
References
External links
Schenley High School website
Pittsburgh Public Schools
Historic, asbestos-plagued Schenley deserves reprieve and makeover
from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the All ...
, February 22, 2006
{{authority control
School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Educational institutions established in 1916
International Baccalaureate schools in Pennsylvania
High schools in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks
Defunct schools in Pennsylvania
1916 establishments in Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places in Pittsburgh
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Pennsylvania