Franklin K. Lane High School
999 Jamaica Avenue | also 985 Jamaica Avenue | Highland Park-Cypress Hills Cemeteries | built 1963
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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
Ground is broken for a WPA-funded high school straddling the Brooklyn-Queens line
After heated arguments over whether the new high school should go to Bushwick or Queens, both with overcrowded schools, officials gave it to both boroughs: the building stands half in Brooklyn and half in Queens, with more of it in Brooklyn. The city received a large federal WPA subsidy, and ground was broken in June 1936. The design took Independence Hall in Philadelphia as its model.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1937
Franklin K. Lane High School is dedicated as one of the world's largest high school buildings
The school opened in September 1937 and was dedicated on October 21, 1937, at a construction cost of $3.5 million paid with PWA and WPA funds. Walter C. Martin, the city's Superintendent of School Buildings, designed the four-story Neo-Georgian building in red brick over a limestone base. Its perimeter measures about a quarter mile.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1938
Basketball star Red Holzman graduates and later gives his name to the gym
William "Red" Holzman was a star basketball player at Franklin K. Lane and graduated in 1938. He went on to City College, the NBA and an award-winning coaching career, and the school's gymnasium bears his name. Brownstoner also lists dancer Jose Greco, Ford Foundation head Franklin A. Thomas and writer Sam Levenson among the alumni, and notes that mobster John Gotti dropped out at 16.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1974
A federal judge finds education at Lane inferior and orders changes to address racial imbalance
During the 1960s and 1970s the school fell on hard times, and parents and teachers went to court over racial imbalance and poor performance. Teacher Harold Saltzman described its racial tensions in his 1972 book Race War in High School. In 1974 federal judge John Dooling found the education offered at the school inferior and said the imbalance should be addressed through redistricting and a redesigned program.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
After the Daily News calls it the city's worst school, the city decides to phase Lane out
On March 8, 2004 the New York Daily News ran the front-page headline "City's Worst School" over a story on Lane's weak academic results, low graduation rates and violence. In December 2007 the Department of Education announced the school would be phased out. It admitted no new ninth graders after 2009, and its last senior class graduated in 2011.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
Marvel films shoot at the school, which stands in for Peter Parker's high school
Exterior shots of the building were filmed in September 2016 for Spider-Man: Homecoming, in which it doubles as the Midtown School of Science and Technology that Peter Parker attends. Interior shots of the lobby were filmed in April 2019 for Avengers: Endgame.
“In September 2016, exterior shots of the school were filmed for the 2017 Marvel Studios film Spider-Man: Homecoming…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Franklin K. Lane High SchoolWikipedia
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All 1 building with stories in Highland Park-Cypress Hills Cemeteries