The Grand Street Campus is a building used as the home for three

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

s in Williamsburg,

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The current building at 850 Grand Street opened in 1981; its identity as the Grand Street Campus dates to 1996. It is currently the home of The High School for Enterprise, Business and Technology, PROGRESS High School for Professional Careers, and the East Williamsburg Scholars Academy. The history of the Campus dates back to the Eastern District High School, a defunct public high school. Eastern District was founded in 1900 and was originally located at Driggs Avenue and South 3rd Street. It later moved to 227 Marcy Avenue, and finally to 850 Grand Street in 1981. It was a comprehensive high school. Eastern District High School operated from 1900 to mid-1996, when it was closed because of poor academic performance. After Eastern District High School closed, the building was rebranded in late 1996 as the Grand Street Campus, with several smaller new schools operating within the same facilities.

History

As Eastern District High School

Original buildings

Eastern District High School td (2019-08-15) 12

Eastern District High School was proposed in 1894, prior to unification of the five boroughs of New York City. The name "Eastern District" originates from the annexation of Williamsburg and Bushwick into the city of Brooklyn as its Eastern District in 1855. The school held its first classes on February 5, 1900, with 188 students. It was originally located at a temporary site on Driggs Avenue and South 3rd Street on the north side of the

Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressw ...

, converted from the former Eastern District Library. In 1902, operations were expanded to the nearby Henry McCaddin Memorial Hall at 288 Berry Street between South 2nd and South 3rd Streets. McCaddin Hall still stands adjacent to the Saints Peter and Paul Church, and later served as a school for the Catholic parish, as well as a library and a concert hall. Eastern District graduated its first class in 1904. Later, Public School 143 on North Ninth Street and Havemeyer Street was used as a third annex. The second location, opened in fall 1907, was situated in western Williamsburg on Marcy Avenue between Keap Street and Rodney Street. It sat across the street from the Williamsburgh branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and near the Marcy Avenue Station of the

BMT Jamaica Line The BMT Jamaica Line, also known as the Broadway - Brooklyn Line is an elevated rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway, in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It runs from the Williamsburg Bridge southeas ...

(currently served by the , , and trains). The H-shaped building was constructed with gray brick, limestone, and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

in Collegiate and

English Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

style. Beginning in the 1960s, Eastern District High School was one of several schools plagued by overcrowding, poor academic performance, low attendance, and student unrest. Frequent demonstrations — both non-violent and violent — by students, parents, and community leaders were met with a large

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

presence. In the spring of 1969, the school was closed several times after a student protest, an incident of vandalism in which glass partitions and windows were shattered, a series of 10 small fires set primarily in the school's cafeteria, and finally a student riot in the cafeteria. The unrest was due to demands to the principal by the school's student leadership not being met, including dismissing a school dean. Reflective of the large Puerto Rican population of the school at the time, Eastern District employed the first Puerto Rican high school principal in

when Marco Hernandez was appointed as acting principal in August 1971. Built to serve a maximum of 1,800 students, Eastern District had an enrollment of 2,900 students by the time the Marcy Avenue building closed in April 1981. The overcrowding had forced over 500 students to attend classes in either a schoolyard annex or the local

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

. That same month Eastern District was moved to its current location. The Marcy Avenue building is currently used by a girl's

yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...

, Bais Ruchel d'Satmar.

New building

Following the closure of the Marcy Avenue location, Eastern District moved into its final location in eastern Williamsburg. Known as "Northeast Brooklyn High School" during construction, the four-story building and campus was built to alleviate crowding both in EDHS and Bushwick High School. The new building opened on April 1, 1981. In its final years of operation in the 1980s and early 1990s, Eastern District continued to be known for poor academics and frequent violence and safety issues. The school had high dropout and truancy rates, with graduation consistently below 20%. The violence, including fights between students and attacks on faculty members, was attributed to both overcrowding and conflicts between the

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

, Dominican, and Puerto Rican populations of the school. The school was also one of the first to receive weekly

metal detector A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, ...

screenings and later permanent metal detectors. The violence and poor performance led principal Sonia Rivera to be removed in 1990 by Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez. Rivera was later charged with incompetence by the New York City Board of Education. The school was moved from the state's list of failing schools to the Chancellor's District of perennially failing schools, and a two-day boycott was held by parents and students in 1992 due to the dire state of the school. The school was ranked as the "second most violent school in the city" in the 1994-1995 academic year, with 232 incidents of violence. Eastern District High School was closed following the 1995-1996 academic year, in which the school had a 30% dropout rate and a 62.3% attendance rate.

As Grand Street Campus

In the fall of 1996, the building was reopened as Grand Street Campus, housing several small high schools under one roof. Grand Street was one of the first former large high schools in New York City to be reopened as an "educational campus." As part of the restructuring, the campus' metal detectors were removed. The new schools were The High School for Enterprise, Business and Technology, Progress High School for Professional Careers, the High School for Legal Studies, and Eastern District Senior Academy. Senior Academy, an

alternative assessment Alternative assessment is also known under various other terms, including: * authentic assessment * integrative assessment * holistic assessment In education, "alternative assessment" is in direct contrast to what is known as "traditional testing ...

school, only operated for two school years, closing in June 1998 and enrolling only junior and senior students from the former high school. Following a special investigation, 61 of the 227 students who graduated from the school had their diplomas revoked due to not satisfying outstanding academic requirements, and over half of the graduates' diplomas were found to be issued under questionable circumstances. The school was found to have awarded credits to students for running errands, working at certain jobs, or for taking classes with little relation to the requirements they satisfied. The other three schools remain in operation; each initially enrolled approximately 600 students, with current enrollment at about 1000 students per school. The High School for Enterprise, Business, and Technology had a four year graduation rate of 80% in 2012. Progress High School and the School for Legal Studies graduated 55% and 65% of their students that year respectively. The schools share the athletics program as the Grand Street Wolves, and have won multiple PSAL championships. The baseball team in particular has produced several

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic ...

and professional players, most notably

Dellin Betances Dellin Betances (; born March 23, 1988) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees and New York Mets from 2011 to 2021. Betances was named an MLB All-Star from 2014 to 2 ...

. The schools also share a large performing arts department including three concert bands, two jazz ensembles, a choir and a comprehensive dance program. Advanced Placement courses are also shared amongst the three schools.

Current schools

High School of Enterprise, Business, & Technology

The High School of Enterprise, Business, & Technology, abbreviated as EBT, was founded by longtime Stuyvesant High School teacher Juan S. Mendez, occupying the fourth floor of campus. The school observes a uniformed dress code, and offers four different programs (Computer Science, Business & Finance, Gateway: Math and Science, Music). EBT was the first GSC school to be removed from the list of Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) in 2000, and has had graduation rates both higher than its sister schools and above Brooklyn average.

PROGRESS High School for Professional Careers

Progress High School was founded in conjunction with the nonprofit organization PROGRESS, Inc. (Puerto Rican Organization for Growth, Research, Education and Self Sufficiency). It features four programs (Medical Professions, Gateway: Math and Science, Instrumental Music, Fine Art) and four Advanced Placement courses. It was the first GSC school to be removed from New York State's list of failing schools.

East Williamsburg Scholars Academy

East Williamsburg Scholars Academy, formerly High School for Legal Studies, feature two programs (Legal Studies, Computer Forensics) centered on the area of Law and Government, with a third track for performing arts. Like EBT, Scholars Academy observes a dress code. Located on the third floor of the campus, the school has the smallest student body within the campus. It was the last school to come off the SURR review list in 2003. In February 1997, prominent lawyer

Johnnie Cochran Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr.Adam Bernstei ''The Washington Post'', March 30, 2005; retrieved April 17, 2006. (; October 2, 1937 – March 29, 2005) was an American lawyer best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal ...

served as "principal for a day" at the school. -

Facilities

Today's Grand Street Campus, opened in 1981, is located at Grand Street and Bushwick Avenue in East Williamsburg, with direct access to the train of the

BMT Canarsie Line The BMT Canarsie Line (sometimes referred to as the 14th Street–Eastern Line) is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway system, named after its terminus in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is served by the ...

. The suburban-style campus was constructed on former commercial and industrial land, at a cost of $46 million. The four-story school building with a 4,000 student capacity features two cafeterias, six gymnasiums, nine computer labs, and several

Industrial arts Industrial arts is an educational program that features the fabrication of objects in wood or metal using a variety of hand, power, or machine tools. Industrial Arts are commonly referred to as Technology Education. It may include small engine re ...

rooms including auto and woodshop. At the southern end of the three-block long campus is the athletic facility, featuring multiple

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

and handball courts, and a large multi-purpose field circumscribed by a running track, featuring dirt cutouts or sliding pits and a pitching mound for

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

. Initially the field was constructed of AstroTurf, and unusable until repairs were made. The field was renovated in 2003 under the city's Take the Field initiative, replacing the AstroTurf with modern artificial turf, and adding cutouts and a mound for

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

as well as a

field house Field house or fieldhouse is an American English term for an indoor sports arena or stadium, mostly used for college basketball, volleyball, or ice hockey, or a support building for various adjacent sports fields, e.g. locker room, team room, coac ...

. To update the medical care of Grand Street Campus' students, the Campus has a partnership with nearby

Woodhull Hospital Woodhull Medical Center, branded as NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull, is a health care system located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York City, United States. Its focus is on preventing disease and promoting healthy lifestyles ...

for an on-campus clinic.

In popular culture

In Betty Smith's 1943 book '' A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'', one of the principal characters, Cornelius "Neeley" Nolan, attends Eastern District High.

Notable alumni

Eastern District High School

* Charles Abrams, urbanist and housing expert, founder of the

New York City Housing Authority The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the U ...

Red Auerbach Arnold Jacob "Red" Auerbach (September 20, 1917 – October 28, 2006) was an American professional basketball coach and executive. He served as a head coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Boston Celtics. ...

, basketball guard, NBA coach and general manager, Hall of Fame * Gertrude Blanch, mathematician *

Mark Breland Mark Anthony Breland (born May 11, 1963) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1984 to 1997, and held the WBA welterweight title twice between 1987 and 1990. He later became an actor with a wide range of movie and television ...

, World Champion Boxer *

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...

, actor, writer, director *

Henry Foner Henry Joseph Foner (March 23, 1919 – January 11, 2017) was a 20th-century Jewish-American social activist and president for more than two decades of the Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union (FLM). He and his three older broth ...

FLM union activist * Jack D. Foner, historian * Moe Foner,

1199 Year 1199 ( MCXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * January 13 – A short-lived truce is declared, between the Kings Richard I (the Lion ...

Union activist *

Philip S. Foner Philip Sheldon Foner (December 14, 1910 – December 13, 1994) was an American labor historian and teacher. Foner was a prolific author and editor of more than 100 books. He is considered a pioneer in his extensive works on the role of radical ...

, American Marxist

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

historian and teacher *

Daniel Fuchs Daniel Fuchs (June 25, 1909 – July 26, 1993) was an American screenwriter, fiction writer, and essayist. Biography Daniel Fuchs was born to a Jewish family on the Lower East Side, Manhattan, but his family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn whi ...

, novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. * Lena Gurr, artist * Harry Halpern, East Midwood Jewish Center rabbi *

Petri Hawkins-Byrd Petri Hawkins-Byrd (born Petri Adonis Byrd; November 29, 1957 in Brooklyn, New York), better known as Bailiff Byrd or simply Byrd, is an American court show bailiff, television personality, social media personality, actor, voice actor, writer, ...

, television personality *

Vic Hershkowitz Vic Hershkowitz (5 October 1918 – 23 June 2008) was a dominant handball player who played from the early 1940s to the early 1960s. He won 23 amateur national titles. He was a New York City fireman. His accomplishments include winning forty ...

, American handball player, New York City Firefighter * Homicide, wrestler * Leonardo S Garcia Velez, writer, tenor * Lena Gurr (1897–1992), artist * Harry Halpern (1899–1981), Conservative rabbi * Stan Isaacs,

sportswriter Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ...

Marvin Kaplan Marvin Wilbur Kaplan (January 24, 1927 – August 25, 2016) was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Best known as Henry Beesmeyer in ''Alice'' (1978–1985). Early years Kaplan was born on January 24, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, th ...

(1927–2016), actor *

Solly Krieger Solly Krieger (March 28, 1909 – September 24, 1964) was an American middleweight boxer who fought from 1928–1941. He held the NBA World Middleweight Championship in 1938–39. Krieger, who was Jewish, was inducted into the International Jew ...

(1909– 1964), middleweight champion boxer * Edward S. Lentol, lawyer and politician * Arthur Levitt, Sr., lawyer and politician, father of former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, Jr. * Gene Malin, actor * Barry Manilow, singer, composer *

George Vincent McLaughlin George Vincent McLaughlin (May 20, 1887 – December 7, 1967) was superintendent of the New York State Banking Department in 1920. He was the New York City Police Commissioner from 1926 to 1927 and president of the Brooklyn Trust Company in 19 ...

, banker, public official,

New York City Police Commissioner The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department and presiding member of the Board of Commissioners. The commissioner is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. The commissioner is responsib ...

* Nathan D. Shapiro, lawyer and New York State assemblyman *

Memphis Bleek Malik Deshawn Cox (born June 23, 1978), known by his stage name Memphis Bleek, is an American rapper who was a protégé of fellow New York rapper Jay-Z. Cox started his own labels: Get Low Records in 1998, and Warehouse Music Group in 2016. He ...

, rapper *

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

, writer * Jayson Dyall, singer, writer, composer *

Joseph Papp Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created ...

, theater producer and founder of the Public Theater * Michael E. Reiburn (1893–1982), graduate class of 1911, New York assemblyman and state senator, disbarred lawyer convicted of fraud and theft *

Frank Rodriguez Francisco Rodriguez (born December 11, 1972) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played in Major League Baseball. Amateur career Rodriguez won the Dick Howser Trophy in 1991. At the time of the award, Rodriguez was playing f ...

, major league baseball player * Angela Carlozzi Rossi (1901-1977), social worker * Mark Warnow, violinist and orchestral composer

Grand Street Campus

(PROGRESS High School), All Star pitcher for the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

Williams Jerez Williams Alexander Jerez ( born May 16, 1992) is a Dominican professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He was a 2nd round selection in the 2011 MLB Draft by the Boston Red Sox. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Ange ...

, pitcher for the

Los Angeles Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team h ...

* Olakunle Fatukasi, linebacker for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights * José Cuas, pitcher for the Kansas City Royals.

Notable faculty

Eastern District High School

* Herb Bernstein, musical composer and record producer, physical education teacher and basketball coach *

Saul Rogovin Saul Walter Rogovin (March 24, 1922 – January 23, 1995) was an American professional baseball player. Rogovin was a pitcher over parts of 8 seasons (1949–57), with the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Philadelphia ...

, former major league pitcher, 1951 AL ERA leader, English teacher for eight years until 1990. *

Eulalie Spence Eulalie Spence (June 11, 1894 – March 7, 1981) was a writer, teacher, director, actress and playwright from the British West Indies. She was an influential member of the Harlem Renaissance, writing fourteen plays, at least five of which were pu ...

, a Harlem Renaissance playwright, taught English,

Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

, and elocution at Eastern District High School from 1927 to 1938; mentor to

.Excerpt from "African American Dramatists: An A to Z Guide." Edited by Emmanuel Sampath Nelson.
From ''Google Books''. Retrieved February 17, 2013.Perkins, Kathy A
Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays Before 1950.

Bloomington, IN Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Monro ...

: Indiana University Press, 1990. . ''Google Books.'' Retrieved October 27, 2012.

Grand Street Campus

* Rebecca Pawel ( EBT High School), novelist and winner of the 2004 Edgar Award for "Best First Novel", teaches English and occasionally Spanish.

References

External links

EBT High School Website

PROGRESS High School Website

School for Legal Studies Website

High School for Legal Studies at greatschools.org
{{Authority control Defunct high schools in Brooklyn New York City Department of Education Williamsburg, Brooklyn Public high schools in Brooklyn Grand Street and Grand Avenue