Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School
100 Amsterdam Avenue | also 200 West 65th Street | Lincoln Square | built 1982
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1936
Mayor LaGuardia founds the High School of Music & Art, the first of the school's two parents
Fiorello H. LaGuardia founded the High School of Music & Art in 1936, hoping to give talented students a public school for music, art and the performing arts. The school first stood at Convent Avenue and 135th Street in Harlem, a building nicknamed the Castle on the Hill, far from today's Lincoln Center site. During his dozen years as mayor, LaGuardia regarded this school as his most hopeful achievement.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1948
The High School of Performing Arts opens in a former public school on West 46th Street
Educator Franklin J. Keller created the High School of Performing Arts in 1947. In 1948 it moved into Public School 46, a disused 1894 school building on West 46th Street near Times Square, offering music, dance, drama and for a time photography. Its early faculty included the young director Sidney Lumet in the drama department.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1958
City leaders break ground for a joint home for Music & Art and Performing Arts near Lincoln Center
In 1958 Mayor Robert F. Wagner and the City Council held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building meant to house both arts schools, with a public promise to finish by 1964. The two schools merged on paper in 1961 as sister schools, each keeping its own campus. In 1969 the combined institution was named for LaGuardia, though the building did not yet exist.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1973
Ground is broken again at Lincoln Center, and the city budget crisis halts construction
Ground was broken a second time in 1973, now for the school building at Lincoln Center, fifteen years after the first ceremony. The city's budget crisis then halted all work, which stayed suspended until the early 1980s. Meanwhile Performing Arts kept holding auditions and graduating classes in its old West 46th Street building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1980
The 1980 film Fame is modeled on one of LaGuardia's two parent schools
Fame, the 1980 film, was modeled on everyday life among the students of the School of Performing Arts, which later became part of LaGuardia High School. A TV series followed in 1982, a stage musical version premiered in 1988, and a loose remake reached theaters in 2009.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
LaGuardia High School opens at Lincoln Center, uniting the two schools in one building
In 1984 students from Music & Art and Performing Arts moved into a new building in Lincoln Square, designed by Eduardo Catalano and named for the late mayor. The merged school took the late mayor's name, and the old Music & Art building in Harlem now houses a different school, A. Philip Randolph Campus High School.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
The class of 1987 includes Jennifer Aniston, Tichina Arnold and Chaz Bono
LaGuardia's alumni association lists a notable group in the class of 1987. Jennifer Aniston and Chaz Bono came through both Performing Arts and LaGuardia, while Tichina Arnold arrived from Music & Art. Carl Anthony Payne II, Reno Wilson, Eagle Eye Cherry and Cecil Castellucci are also listed under the same year.
Source: alumniandfriends.org
- 1994
The class of 1994 includes Adrian Grenier, Corey Stoll and Rochelle Aytes
The school's alumni association lists several actors from the class of 1994 at LaGuardia, among them Adrian Grenier, Corey Stoll, Rochelle Aytes and Dagmara Dominczyk. Laquita Mitchell and Johnathan Lee Iverson are listed with the same class.
Source: alumniandfriends.org
- 1998
The alumni association moves into an office on the school's 8th floor
Alumni & Friends of LaGuardia dates to 1983, when graduates of the two legacy schools organized to give the merged school lasting private support at a time when city finances were still shaken by the late-1970s fiscal crisis. It was set up as a permanent organization that welcomed large and small gifts alike. In 1998 the independent nonprofit moved into its current office on the school's eighth floor.
Source: alumniandfriends.org
- 2009
The class of 2009 includes Zazie Beetz and Azealia Banks
Zazie Beetz, listed among the actors, and Azealia Banks both appear on the alumni association's roster of notable graduates for the class of 2009. Zach O'Farrill and Alaysha Fox are named under the same year.
Source: alumniandfriends.org
- 2012
Life of the Party, a new musical with LaGuardia's Opera Workshop, runs May 3 to 6
In 2011 Broadway writers Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin announced a new musical with LaGuardia's Opera Workshop and Pit Orchestra. Titled Life of the Party, it is a comedy drawing on Soviet movie musicals of the Stalin era. It ran from May 3 through May 6, 2012.
“The work ran from May 3 through May 6, 2012.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2014
The pit orchestra works with Lin-Manuel Miranda on In the Heights
In 2014 the school's pit orchestra teamed up with the cast of In the Heights and its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, to develop LaGuardia's own staging of the musical. Its two ensembles play for the school's annual musical and opera.
“In 2014, the musical pit orchestra worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of In The Heights to workshop their own production…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Fiorello H. LaGuardia High SchoolWikipedia
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