Picture of Laguardia Music and Art High School Circa 1970s

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Public specialized schoolhouse high school in New York, New York, United States

The High School of Music & Fine art
Address

443-465 W 135th Street New York , New York Us
Information
Type	Public specialized school High schoolhouse
Established	1936
Founder	Fiorello H. LaGuardia
Closed	1984
Chief	Richard A. Klein (1969–1987)
Grades	9–12
Campus	urban
Color(s)	burgundy & light blue
Nickname	Grand&A
Merged with	High Schoolhouse of Performing Arts
To grade	Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & the Arts
Website	http://www.alumniandfriends.org/

The Loftier School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art" (or "M&A"), was a public specialized high school located at 443-465 W 135th Street in the civic of Manhattan, New York, from 1936 until 1984. In 1961, Music & Art and the High School of Performing Arts (est. 1947) were formed into a two-campus high schoolhouse. The schools fully merged in 1984 into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & the Arts.

Colloquially known as "The Castle on the Hill," the edifice that once housed Music & Art is located in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Harlem, in the campus of the Metropolis College of New York across the street from St. Nicholas Park. The building at present houses the A. Philip Randolph Campus High School, a magnet school of the New York City Department of Education.

History [edit]

New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia started the high school in 1936, an event he described as "the most hopeful accomplishment" of his administration.^[ane] Every bit the mayor of New York City he wanted to establish a public school in which students could hone their talents in music, art and the performing arts. Music & Art was made up of three departments: Art, Instrumental Music, and Song Music. It was a magnet school, meant to depict talented students from all boroughs. In 1948, a sister school — the High School of Performing Arts — was created in an effort to harness students' talents in dance.

Future Mad magazine contributors Al Jaffee, Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin, and Al Feldstein all attended Music & Art together in the 1930s.^[ii] ^[3] Comic book artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, did equally well, though they were slightly younger than Jaffee and the rest.

R. O. Blechman, Milton Glaser, Ed Sorel,^[4] and Reynold Ruffins^[5] — three of the four co-founders of the blueprint firm Push Pivot Studios — were M&A students in the 1940s. Other M&A graduates from the 1940s include Bess Myerson, Allan Kaprow, and Hal Linden.

Notable graduates from the 1950s included Gloria Davy,^[half-dozen] Diahann Carroll, Susan Stamberg, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Yarrow, Tony Roberts, James Burrows, Erica Jong, and Felix Pappalardi.

Notable M&A graduates from the 1960s include Peter Hyams, Steven Bochco, Robbie Conal, Graham Diamond, Maira Kalman,^[vii] Bob Mankoff,^[8] Diane Noomin,^[9] and Margot Adler; while notable graduates from the 1970s include musicians Paul Stanley^[ten] and Kenny Washington.

Notable M&A grads from the 1980s include writers Jonathan Lethem^[eleven] and Lynn Nottage, and hip-hop musician Slick Rick.

Merger with Performing Arts [edit]

Every bit per Mayor LaGuardia'due south vision, Music & Art and Performing Arts merged on newspaper in 1961^[12] and were to be combined in one edifice. However, this took many years and it was not until 1984 that the sister schools were merged into a new schoolhouse, the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, at a new building designed by Eduardo Catalano in the Lincoln Square expanse of Manhattan. The Board of Education posthumously honored Mayor LaGuardia by naming the new building after him.

Architectural significance [edit]

The 1924 gothic revival building was designed past William H. Gompert, Architect & Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York Metropolis Board of Education, to house the New York Training School for Teachers. The Training School became the New York Teachers Training Higher from 1931 to 1933. That school was abolished during the Low when at that place was a surplus of teachers for the city's schoolhouse organization, and Mayor LaGuardia used the opportunity to create the Loftier School of Music & Art.

Architecturally, the building blends in with the older gothic revival buildings of the Metropolis Higher campus, designed by architect George B. Mail service around 1900 to create a setting that came to be known as "the poor man's Harvard."

Music & Art students and graduates frequently referred to the building every bit "The Castle on the hill," a reference to the design of its gothic towers, and the decorative gargoyles washed in a quirky and playful style that the Landmarks Commission study describes as "finials in the shape of creatures begetting shields." The tower rooms have dramatic acoustics, which Music & Fine art used as choral practice rooms. The big gymnasium features big Tudor-arch-shaped windows on two sides that at certain times during the solar day stream sunlight into the room. The auditorium has excellent acoustics, and features diamond-shaped bister windows that during daylight bandage a warm glow on its dark wood interior. The iron ends of the auditorium seats accept a casting with an image of the Tudor window arches in the gymnasium.

The building won status equally a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee in 1997.^[13] According to the Landmark Commission report, this was not an expensive building for its fourth dimension, and many of the structural components (like the staircase bracings in the stairwell) were left exposed to save coin. Yet much thought went into humanizing the space and creating a good environs for learning, with enough of natural light and air, expansive collaborative spaces, and much playful decoration thrown in for good measure out:

The five- and six-story (plus basement and central tower) L-shaped [building] was designed in an abstracted contemporary Collegiate Gothic manner and clad in limestone and mottled buff-to brownish iron-spot brick, with large window bays filled with unusual folding-casement steel sash windows. Exterior joint, divided vertically by pavilions, buttresses, and foursquare towers, too differentiated the model school and training schoolhouse portions, as well equally a "churchlike" wing housing an auditorium, in a higher place which is a gymnasium.

Notable alumni [edit]

Note: anyone who graduated after 1984 is considered a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, not Music & Fine art

Margot Adler (1964), radio journalist
Ross Andru (c. 1940),^[14] comic book artist
Eleanor Antin (1952), artist
Louis Abolafia (1958), artist, presidential candidate, and countercultural figure
Stanley Aronowitz,^[15] bookish and activist
Ray Billingsley (c. 1974) — cartoonist, creator of the syndicated comic strip Curtis
R. O. Blechman (c. 1948),^[xvi] animator, illustrator, children'southward-book writer, and cartoonist
Steven Bochco (1961), Television producer & writer
Frank Bolle,^[17] cartoonist
Steven Brower (1970), designer and author
James Burrows (1958), director
Harriet Camen (1946), ceramics artist
Diahann Carroll (1953), vocalizer
Jerome Charyn (1955), novelist
Kvitka Cisyk (1970), singer
Billy Cobham (1962), jazz drummer
Gil Coggins, jazz pianist and composer
Kenny Drew, jazz pianist
Robbie Conal (1961), artist
Gloria Davy (1951), operatic soprano
Graham Diamond (1963), speculative fiction writer
Will Elder (1940), cartoonist^[two]
Alvin Epstein (1943), actor and director^[18]
Mike Esposito (c. 1940),^[14] comic book artist
Al Feldstein, cartoonist and editor^[2]
Bela Fleck (1976) banjo player
Charles Flim-flam, composer
Peter Freeman, multi-instrumentalist, bassist and music composer
Gerald Fried, composer, conductor, and oboist
Dave Gantz (c. 1939), cartoonist
Lenora Garfinkel (1930-2020), architect
Milton Glaser (1947), designer
Christopher Invitee (~1966), screenwriter, actor, manager, composer
Charles Gwathmey^[19] (1956), builder
Peter Hyams (1960), director
Al Jaffee (1940), cartoonist^[2]
Erica Jong (1959), author
Maira Kalman (1967), illustrator, author, artist, and designer^[7] ^[20]
Michael Kamen (1965), composer
Susan Kamil, book editor and publisher^[21]
Allan Kaprow (1945), painter and performance artist
Amy A. Kass, educator and anthologist^[22]
Everett Raymond Kinstler, artist, Portrait painter
James Howard Kunstler (1966), writer, social critic
Harvey Kurtzman (1941), cartoonist, creator of Mad Mag^[two]
Paul Lansky (1961), composer
Michael Lax (1947), industrial designer
Jonathan Lethem (1982), author
Shari Lewis (née Sonia Phyllis Hurwitz) (c. 1951) actress, puppeteer
Hal Linden (1948), actor
Bob Mankoff (1962), cartoonist and long-time The New Yorker magazine drawing editor
Ray Marcano, medical reporter and music critic^[23]
William A. Moses, existent estate developer
Bess Myerson (1941), actress and pol
Diane Noomin (c. 1964), cartoonist
Lynn Nottage^[24] (1982), playwright
Laura Nyro (née Nigro), (1965), singer/songwriter
Frank J. Oteri (1981), composer and music journalist
Brock Peters, actor
Margaret Ponce State of israel painter and ceramist
Slick Rick (1983), hip-hop musician
Joshua Rifkin (1961), conductor and musicologist
Tony Roberts (1957), actor
Arlen Roth (1969) Guitarist, author, singer
Reynold Ruffins (1948), designer
Bernard Safran (1939), illustrator, artist
Ed Seeman cartoonist, cinematographer, photographer, abstruse artist, moving picture director
John Severin (1940), cartoonist^[2]
Joel Shatzky (1943- 2020), author and literary professor
Robert Siegel^[19] (1957), architect
Ed Sorel (c. 1947), illustrator and cartoonist
Susan Stamberg (1955), radio journalist
Paul Stanley (1970), musician
Jeremy Steig (1960), improvising flutist
Daniel Stern (1946), author, musician
Steve Stiles (c. 1960), cartoonist
Susan Strasberg (1956), actress
Beth Ames Swartz, artist
Richard Taruskin (1961), music historian^[25]
Daniel Waitzman (1961), flutist and composer
Kenny Washington (1976), jazz musician
Baton Dee Williams (1955), actor
Peter Yarrow (1955), singer/songwriter
Sherman Yellen (1949) playwright, memoirist
Kristi Zea (1966) production designer

References [edit]

^ Steigman, Benjamin: Emphasis on Talent -- New York's High School of Music & Art. Wayne State Academy Press, 1984 LCCN 64-13873.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^east ^f Mark Evanier, Mad Fine art, Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002, ISBN 0-8230-3080-six.
^ "Mad Magazine'due south AL JAFFEE". acast . Retrieved 2019-xi-14 .
^ Grimes, William. "Art; The Gripes of Wrath: 25 Years of Edward Sorel". The New York Times. (May sixteen, 1993).
^ "LaGuardia Arts Alumni," Archived 2014-04-08 at archive.today LaGuardia High Schoolhouse official website. Accessed December. 26, 2014.
^ "Obituary: Gloria Davy". Opera News. Dec 3, 2012.
^ ^a ^b Master of the Calendar month: Maira Kalman from IllustrationFriday.com
^ Mankoff, Robert. "Comics: Meet the Artist," (transcript), Washington Mail (November v, 2004).
^ Noomin profile Archived 2016-06-23 at the Wayback Machine, UF Conference on Comics & Graphic Novels 2003: Underground(s)]. University of Florida. Retrieved on 2008-01-30.
^ "Nicki Minaj Forbidden From Meeting Students at Her Former High Schoolhouse: "I Guess I'grand Not Good Enough", East! Online, September 14, 2014.
^ Reed Tucker, "Fame'due south Accolade Whorl", New York Mail, September 20, 2009.
^ "LaGuardia Arts: The .Mission". LaGuardia High Schoolhouse website. Archived from the original on 22 June 2015. Retrieved xviii December 2010.
^ Landmark designation for the New York Training Schoolhouse for Teachers Archived 2017-03-01 at the Wayback Machine From www.nyc.gov. Retrieved Nov v, 2012.
^ ^a ^b Esposito, Mike, in Stroud, Bryan D. (2008). "Mike Esposito interview (part 1)". The Silver Age Sage. Archived from the original on June 16, 2012. Retrieved February xiii, 2009. I went to the High Schoolhouse of Music & Art ... in Harlem Additional , June 16, 2012.
^ Biography Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Car at Stanley Aronowitz official website. Accessed March 16, 2016.
^ Sorel, Edward. "1999 Hall of Fame: R.O Blechman, Advertising/Analogy". The Art Directors Society. Archived from the original on December 8, 2010. Retrieved September fifteen, 2011.
^ Bolle, Frank. "Frank Bolle". National Cartoonists Society. Archived from the original on June 28, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2015. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. June 23, 1924 and started drawing on whatsoever fleck of newspaper I could find.
^ Diane Nottle (December 11, 2018). "Alvin Epstein, Actor, Director and Main of Beckett, Dies at 93". The New York Times.
^ ^a ^b BERNSTEIN, FRED A. "Charles Gwathmey, Architect Loyal to Aesthetics of Loftier Modernism, Dies at 71," New York Times (AUG. 4, 2009).
^ Alumni Notes (Alumni & Friends of Fiorello H. LaGuardia HS of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Spring 2018), p. 6.
^ Roberts, Sam (September x, 2019). "Susan Kamil, a Meridian Book Editor and Publisher, Dies at 69". The New York Times.
^ "Obituary: Amy A. Kass". Chicago Tribune. August 21, 2015.
^ Hannah, Jim (xx November 2014). "A Bronx tale". Wright State University. Retrieved eighteen August 2015.
^ KILIAN, MICHAEL. "Playwright tells intimate tales: Lynn Nottage wrote 2 works simultaneously," Chicago Tribune (June 17, 2004).
^ McBride, Jerry (2008). "Richard Taruskin". Stanford Academy Libraries and Academic Information Resources. Archived from the original on thirty January 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2021.

External links [edit]

Website of the Alumni & Friends of LaGuardia High School of Music & the Arts
1977 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Report on the old High School of Music & Art Building that now houses the A. Phillip Randolph Campus High Schoolhouse (pdf-format file).
MyCastleTreasures.com a tribute to the alumni of the Loftier Schoolhouse of Music and Art

Coordinates: 40°49′06″Due north 73°57′00″Westward / xl.818379°N 73.95005°W / forty.818379; -73.95005