I was there once to get a college financial aid form that Fordham University, Rose Hill, had not received from my old high school. So, it was either go over there or hope to get back home before Mahopac High School closed on a Friday afternoon. Actually, my first trip was to Fordham Preparatory School (Fordham Prep). They knew of the form but were out of them. So I then went across to Roosevelt.
For a guy from the Putnam County suburbs it was my first attempt to see such varied “other” kinds of schools.
Fordham Prep, as I recall, was the most expensive Catholic High School in NYC at the time; because the nearby Metro North station made stops at “posh” towns like Scarsdale and Greenwich, that made sense. I saw carpeted halls and all those boys wore maroon colored jackets and ties. Yep, the ones that needed to be dry-cleaned.
By contrast, Theodore Roosevelt was the first high school I ever entered with a metal detector (late 1970s). As I went to their guidance counseling office I saw a security guard slam a kid against the lockers.
I do not want to recall these places with any undue adult nostalgia since as a college freshman, I was only a few months removed from sneaking a look at their test answers or running down the same hallways. I thought I was pretty cool and for the record it was all the big city to me back then-I did not start to distinguish Manhattan as “The City” until my senior college year.
With a look back, l probably should npt conclude that Theodore Roosevelt and Fordham Prep are so dramatically different as, let’s say, a high school in Bedford-Stuyvesant / Harlem or places like Choate or Exeter on the other extreme. But for a country boy, these were worlds apart.
Oh, that financial aid form I needed, Roosevelt had an extra copy and kindly gave it to me.
History of the School
I was disappointed to hear that the school has been closed. Chazz Palminteri, who wrote and starred in the film A Bronx Tale is a graduate. Thelma Edna Berlack Boozer, prominent journalist and feminist leader graduated also, as did Dion and both of the Belmonts.
But after decades of riots and some students figuring out how to sneak weapons past metal detectors the Board of Education had had enough. Being placed among New York state’s worst institutions, Roosevelt was placed on the New York State Department of Education’s list of failing schools.
On June 30, 2006, the final class graduated at the lowest rate among the city’s large high schools, 3%. [1] It then closed.
Theodore Roosevelt High School, originally Roosevelt High School, was the third public high school to open in the Bronx, operated from 1918 until 2006. https://insideschools.org/school/10X435
The building was renamed the Theodore Roosevelt Educational Campus, housing six (6) small high schools: the Belmont Preparatory High School, the Bronx High School for Law and Community Service, the Fordham High School for the Arts, the Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology, the West Bronx Academy for the Future, and the Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy. [2]
Featured image: Beyond My Ken
Written by: Kevin Bergin
Bibliography:
[1] Kenneth Lovett, “Grad Tidings”, New York Post, April 26, 2007.
[2] “Theodore Roosevelt Educational Campus”, Insideschools, March 2012.
