Wadleigh Over Time
09/1897 - 07/1902
The Downtown Building
New York City’s first public high school for girls, called Girls High School, opened in 1897 in a building on East 12th Street in downtown Manhattan. That building previously had been the site of the 12th Street Advanced School for Girls, a private school founded by Lydia Wadleigh in 1856. In honor of Ms. Wadleigh’s work in girls’ education, the Board of Education of the City of New York renamed what had been called Girls High School to Wadleigh High School for Girls in 1900.
When the 12th Street Advanced School for Girls opened, New York City operated its school on a racially segregated basis. Most likely, only white students attended that school. By 1897, when Girls High School opened, New York City had ended segregation as formal policy, although New York State had not yet done so. We don’t know if any Black girls attended Girls High School.
09/1902 - 06/1954
Wadleigh High School for Girls
New York City’s separate boroughs - Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island - consolidated to form a single city, and a single school system, in 1898. The consolidated city government planned a group of new high school buildings, including a new school for girls. Architect C.B. Snyder designed a new building for Wadleigh High School for Girls, and located it on a part of the block formed by 114th and 115th St, 7th Avenue, and 8th Avenue in Harlem. The neo-gothic building had an imposing Gothic tower and new innovations like an elevator and central ventilation.
Wadleigh High School for Girls opened in Harlem in the fall of 1902. Wadleigh moved to Harlem at the same time that many white middle-class New Yorkers were also moving uptown, following new subway lines to more spacious apartments. Many of them were families of recent or second-generation immigrants from Europe. Black New Yorkers, previously restricted by racism to a few downtown neighborhoods, began to move to Harlem when declining white demand for its apartments and Black real estate entrepreneurship opened the area to them beginning in 1905.
As Harlem’s Black population grew via migration within New York, from the US South, and the Caribbean, more Black students attended Wadleigh. The school was roughly one-third Black in 1931, but nearly 98% Black as of 1945. Many white residents had moved out of Harlem, and the Board of Education used zoning to make Wadleigh a predominantly Black school.
Wadleigh’s enrollment declined over the 1940s and 1950s, and the Board of Education decided to close it as a girls high school in 1954.
Kimberly Johnson, “Wadleigh High School: The Price of Segregation”
09/1954 - 06/1993
Wadleigh Junior High School
After being closed for two years for a renovation, the Wadleigh building reopened in the fall of 1954 as Wadleigh Junior High School (or JHS 88, later IS 88, in some records). The school served both boys and girls from Harlem.
Wadleigh’s student population reflected the surrounding Harlem community. Most students were Black or Puerto Rican, and most were working class or poor.
New York City had a small proportion of Black teachers, but Wadleigh had several Black teachers who chose the school and stayed. After parent protest in the early 1970s, the Board of Education appointed Wadleigh’s first Black principal, Ms. Elfreda Wright.
In the 1980s, Wadleigh’s supporters advocated for long-overdue repairs to the increasingly decrepit building. They were successful in winning a major renovation in 1993, but it came alongside a major reorganization that effectively closed Wadleigh as a junior high school.
Explore yearbooks from Wadleigh Junior High School
Explore oral histories from Wadleigh Junior High School alumni and teachers
07/1994
Landmark Designation
The New York City Landmarks Commission gave Wadleigh historic landmark status in 1994. A network of Black women who had attended Wadleigh High School in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s lobbied local politicians and organized to secure this recognition for their school. For decades after they attended the school, their work included fundraising for school resources and for scholarship support for Wadleigh students.
Their advocacy was one factor in securing a major renovation for the Wadleigh building from 1994 to 1997. The building was closed for construction in these years.
Application for Wadleigh’s building to be made a historical landmark
01/1997
From One School to Multiple Schools
In the 1990s and 2000s, New York City divided many of its larger schools into smaller schools, or separate programs or houses within larger schools. Each smaller school or program offered its own focus area or theme, and students and families would choose which one suited them best.
Wadleigh was reconfigured into separate small schools as well. There were three schools, each with a special academic focus: writing and publishing, science and technology, and the arts. During the 1994-1997 renovation, these schools operated in temporary spaces. Then in 1997 they moved into the historic Wadleigh building.
The separate schools faced challenges in sustaining enrollment, and soon were combined into one secondary school.
09/1999 - 09/2012
Charter Schools Open in Harlem and at Wadleigh
Charter schools are funded with public dollars but managed by private organizations. Harlem’s first charter school opened in 1999. It was created by educators working with Canaan Baptist Church and was named the Sisulu-Walker Charter School. That name honored Canaan’s long-term pastor Wyatt Tee Walker, who had been a key figure in the US civil rights movment, and Walter Sisulu, who fought against apartheid in South Africa.
While Sisulu-Walker was deeply connected to Harlem institutions, many of the charter schools that developed in Harlem were controlled by organizations with few local roots. One of New York’s largest charter networks opened a new charter school, Success Academy Harlem West Middle School, on the 4th floor of the Wadleigh building in 2012.
Success Academy periodically lobbied the Department of Education - which allocates school space - to have yet more room in the Wadleigh building. Their administrators argued that Wadleigh’s small enrollment at the middle school level should lead to closure of part or all of the school, making space for Success Academy to expand.
09/2000
Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts
Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts opened in 2000.
A few years later, Frederick Douglass Academy II opened in space within the the Wadleigh building as well. FDAII was designed on a small-school model created by former Wadleigh teacher Lorraine Monroe.
Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts
09/2011 - 09/2018
Threats of Closure
In the 2010s, as charter schools expanded in Harlem and New York City while district public schools saw declining enrollment, the Department of Education twice proposed to close Wadleigh’s middle-school grades, which they called “truncation” but which many community members saw as a step toward closing the school overall. Education officials said that closing the middle school grades was needed to address low enrollment at the school (with fewer than 100 students in the 3 middle-school grades) and low academic performance as measured on standardized math and reading tests.
Both in 2011-12 and 2017-18, Wadleigh community members including alumni, parents, teachers, and students, alongside local politicians, rallied to support the school rather than close it. Their advocacy led to the appointment of a new principal and investment of more resources to support Wadleigh’s arts programs.
News coverage of the 2011-12 closure proposal