Stuyvesant High School

Stuyvesant High School, often nicknamed Stuy by its staff and students, is one of New York City's specialized math- and science-based public high schools. The school was founded in 1904. Admission to Stuyvesant, which is run by the New York City Department of Education, is by competitive examination, and there is no tuition. The school is noted for its many accomplished alumni, its rigorous academics, and for sending the most students to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton of any public school in the United States.

History

Stuyvesant High School is named after Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New Netherland before the ownership of the colony was transferred to England in 1664.

Related Topics:
Peter Stuyvesant - Dutch - New Netherland - England - 1664

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The school was established in 1904 as a manual training school for boys, hosting 155 students and 12 faculty. In 1907, it moved from its original location at 225 East 23rd Street to 345 East 15th Street, where it remained for the following 85 years. Its reputation for excellence in math and science continued to grow, and the school had to be put on a double session in the early 1920s to accommodate the rising number of students. In the 1930s, admission tests were implemented, making it even more competitive. During the 1950s, a $2 million renovation was done on the building to update its classrooms, shops, libraries and cafeterias. In 1969, 14 girls enrolled, marking the first co-educational year. Now, approximately 43 percent of students are female. http://www.nycenet.edu/daa/SchoolReports/03asr/171475.pdf

Related Topics:
1907 - 1920s - 1930s - 1950s - 1969

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In 1957, a team of 50 students began construction of a cyclotron, with the project sponsored by the physics department. By 1962, a low-power test of the device succeeded, while by account of Matt Deming '62, a later attempt at full-power operation "tanked the electrical system for the building and surrounding area".http://www.ourstrongband.org/extracurriculars.htm#cyclotron http://www.stuy100.org/stuy-timeline.html According to Abraham Baumel, Stuyvesant principal from 1983–1994, "... I can tell you with certainty that never worked at Stuyvesant any more than it did for Ernest Orlando Lawrence, and he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his invention of the cyclotron. The Russians never succeeded in getting one to work, either." http://www.ourstrongband.org/extracurriculars.htm#cyclotron

Related Topics:
Cyclotron - Ernest Orlando Lawrence

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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Stuyvesant was struck particularly hard by the AIDS epidemic, with at least four teachers dying from that disease. Principal Jinxx Cozzi-Perullo subsequently issued a warning about the dangers of unsafe anal sex at a faculty seminar in San Francisco.

Related Topics:
1980s - 1990s - AIDS

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By the 1980s, it was clear that the East 15th Street building was showing its age, both on the exterior (it was sometimes humorously claimed to be "sinking" - as evidenced by the foundation date of 1904 on the cornerstone, half-buried under the adjacent sidewalk, but was actually an effect caused by added layers of concrete) and on the interior (many of the facilities, such as the physics labs could most charitably be described as "decrepit"). Furthermore, with a student body of several thousand crammed into a relatively small, five-floor building, the school was undeniably overcrowded.

Related Topics:
1980s - Labs

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The New York City Board of Education secured an agreement with the Battery Park City Authority for a new building, and construction began in 1989. The new ten-floor building, located near lower Manhattan's financial district, was constructed at a cost of about $148 million and houses 65 classrooms with a 26" color RCA television in almost every room, about 450 computers on 13 networks, two full size gyms as well as 3 smaller gyms for gymnastics, wrestling, dance and fitness, a state-of-the-art theater with acoustics and lighting to accommodate concert, musical, and dramatic productions, with two lecture halls with movable partitions, a skylit cafeteria overlooking the Hudson River, 12 science laboratories, including a molecular biology lab and an analytical chemistry lab, and special shops for instruction in ceramics, photography, wood, plastics, metal work, robotics, and energy studies.

Related Topics:
Battery Park City - 1989 - Financial district - Hudson River

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One unusual feature of the new building is an indoor PSAL swimming pool, thus obsoleting an old Stuyvesant prank—disoriented new freshmen in the old building were traditionally directed by older students to the "sixth floor pool" (there was no pool, nor did the building have a sixth floor). Now, many students are instead directed towards the "tenth floor pool" (again, there is no such pool, though there is a tenth floor). As part of the seven semesters of physical education required, students are now required to demonstrate swimming proficiency.

Related Topics:
PSAL - Prank - Freshmen - Physical education - Swimming

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The library has a capacity of 40,000 volumes and large glass windows overlooking Battery Park City, although the windows are often shuttered to prevent the sun from overheating the library. The library is a popular hangout for students during their free periods, with tables for studying, computers for work or play, and hundreds of square feet of carpet for sitting and socializing.

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The New York City Department of Education reports that public per student spending is actually slightly lower than the city average. http://www.nycenet.edu/daa/SchoolReports/03asr/171475.pdf However, Stuyvesant also receives some private contributions. http://www.ourstrongband.org/Videos/CampaignForStuyvesant_Broadband.wmv

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Between classes, skip-story escalators ferry students up and down the ten-story building, and although four elevators exist, they are off-limits to students (who can not demonstrate need.) A common student gripe is the alleged frequency of escalator breakdowns; The Broken Escalator became the title of a school humor publication. When the escalators do break down, groans can be heard as Stuyvesant students grudgingly clamber up the steps. In the summer of 2004 the school finally took close to a million dollars from a special Department of Education fund for school repair in order to overhaul the ailing escalators. Students sometimes use copies of stolen escalator keys to switch an upward moving escalator to move downwards (so that there are two down escalators) as a prank.

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Glass boxes set into various places in the building's wall hold mementos from the year of each graduating class, with some boxes left open for future classes. Curiosities in the boxes include water from most large rivers, mud from the Dead Sea, a Revolutionary War button, pieces of the old Stuyvesant building and of monuments around the world, and various chemical compounds. In 1997 the mathematics wing was dedicated to Dr. Richard Rothenberg, the math department chairman before his premature death from a sudden heart attack in 1997. The Rothenberg memorial, commissioned in his honor, is a wall made up of 50 of these boxes, each featuring a concept in mathematics.

Related Topics:
Dead Sea - Revolutionary War

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One room in the Stuyvesant building, called the "Museum Room", is a replica of one of the rooms in the old Stuyvesant building, with desks, chairs, a table and blackboard from the old building, as well as period style paint and flooring. The room is dedicated to teacher Dr. A. Edward Stefanacci, who died in 1993.

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Shortly after the new building was completed, the $10 million TriBeCa Bridge was built to allow students to enter the building without having to cross the extremely busy and dangerous West Street. The bridge is now the primary method by which students enter the building.

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In the early 2000s, Gary He '02 started the now-defunct stuynet.com, a website where students could rate their teachers, although he later shut down the evaluation section after mathematics teacher Bruce Winokur threatened a libel suit. Words left on the website read "Teacher Evaluations is currently down but will soon be back better than ever. The vox populi must be heard." http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:www.loper.org/~george/trends/2001/Jun/52.html Stuynet.com now lives on under its new alias, stuycom.net, after ownership was transferred to Josh Weinstein '05. There, the teacher evaluations are dubbed "course evaluations" and cause less controversy than their predecessors. Stuycom.net is currently under the ownership of Gui Bessa '08.

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Moviegoers may be able to recognize the school from several scenes in the movie Hackers, filmed in November, 1994 using upperclassmen as extras.

Related Topics:
Hackers - November - 1994

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Centennial celebration

Stuyvesant celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2004. Events began on October 19, 2003 with "The Stuy Strut" http://www.stuy100.org/strut.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stuy_Strut.jpg — a walk from the old Stuyvesant building to the new one, symbolizing the transition. During March of 2004, Stuyvesant and City College hosted the NCSSSMST, while June 6th was the all-class reunion. Celebrations were concluded with the centennial homecoming on October 10th, and the centennial gala dinner http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Stuy_100_gala.pdf on the 28th, featuring speakers Frank McCourt and Richard Axel.

Related Topics:
2004 - NCSSSMST - Frank McCourt - Richard Axel

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The South Florida Alumni Association of Stuyvesant

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High School had its own centennial celebration http://www.geocities.com/StuyFla/Pictures/Centennial/Centennial.htm on December 4th

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at the Boca Raton Country Club. School principal Stanley Teitel

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was guest speaker.

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