Struggling School’s Rich Past Cited as Reason to Keep It Intact

More than 2,000 people crowded through the marbled halls into the auditorium of DeWitt Clinton High School on Oct. 29, 1929 to hear Mayor James J. Walker inaugurate the all-boys institution’s ambitious new 21-acre campus on Mosholu Parkway, which cost the city a cool $3.5 million.

“This temple of education will well repay us even after we are gone, by training future generations to be good citizens,” Walker said, according to a New York Times article.

Walker’s prediction couldn’t have been more accurate as the school, which first opened in 1897 in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, has molded some of the most famous people in the country, including designer Ralph Lauren, author James Baldwin, comedian Tracy Morgan and comic book icon Stan Lee (creator of “Spider-Man,” “The Fantastic Four” and the “X-Men”), along with a slew of Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winners, 11 Pulitzer Prize winners and five Olympic medalists.

“Kids come up to me when I’m in the school and say ‘Did Stan Lee really go here?’ And what’s great about Stan Lee is that he is a guy who crosses the ages and really unites everybody,” said Gerard Pelisson, co-author of “The Castle on the Parkway: The Story of New York City’s Dewitt Clinton High School and its Extraordinary Influence on American Life” and former DeWitt Clinton teacher. “And there’s that kind of spirit in Clinton and it really has had its spirit challenged in the last 10 years.”

Clinton has seen its share of turbulence since its ranking among the top 100 high schools in the country just 13 years ago. It now joins the chopping block with a reported 60 other public high schools after the Department of Education handed it its second consecutive “F” on the 2011-2012 progress report.

Hundreds of students and faculty, past and present, showed up at a forum in December to voice their support for their school and their desire to see it remain intact.

Most of the Bronx’s other big high schools have been chopped up into several smaller schools, but speakers at the forum said that would be a disservice to current students and deal a blow to the school’s rich history.

“It was very impressive to see how many students stood up and said how much the history of the school mattered to them,” said Pelisson. “Where the mayor is saying it doesn’t matter, well, why don’t you ask the students and see whether they think it matters.”

The DOE gave the school a “B” on the College and Career Readiness, but an “F” in student progress, student performance, and school environment, making Clinton’s overall score 37.2 out of 100. However, students felt the DOE’s grade was an inaccurate portrayal of their school and in response, conducted their own study on student life and academics and graded their school a “B-”.

Many Clinton students have taken great pride in sharing a campus that boasted such famous alumni as well as hosting more than 57 programs and activities, including 30 athletic teams, a Junior ROTC training program, a literary magazine, student newspaper and the esteemed M.A.C.Y. Honors program.

“My dad went to Clinton back when it was an all-boys school,” said former Clinton student Tani Aponte. “He played for the boys basketball team and always talked about how great it was when he went there and when the school became co-ed, he was so happy because he really wanted me to go there.”

Clinton’s size, athletics, academics, programs and alumni were all factors that went into making the school one of the most notable in the United States. According to the 1963 Guinness Book of World Records, a peak enrollment of 12,000 students made Clinton the largest high school in the world.

“All the great Broadway plays are all written by Clinton people,” said Pelisson. “’The Sound of Music,’ ‘Guys and Dolls,’ and the books, ‘The King and I,’ ‘Annie,’ ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’— these are all Clinton guys who wrote these and the list goes on and on.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story appears in the Jan. 10-23 print edition of the Norwood News.