Union City High School - History

History

The site on which Union City High School sits was originally the site of the Hudson County Consumers Brewery Company. It was purchased for $456,000, and turned it into a gated playground. Later, through the efforts of Director of Public Affairs Harry J. Thorout and the Federal Works Progress Administration, which awarded the project $172,472, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, it was turned into the art deco Roosevelt Stadium, which opened in 1937. Though primarily a football stadium that served as a home to future National Football League greats Lou Cordileone and Frank Winters and College Football Hall of Famer Ed Franco, the stadium also housed events in semi-pro baseball, soccer, track, boxing, as well as numerous special events, from tractor pulls, concerts, carnivals and Fourth of July fireworks shows, to an exhibition baseball game featuring Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Roosevelt Stadium was also the home to the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Game between rivals Emerson High School and Union Hill High School, the last of which was hosted by the stadium in 2004. (Three subsequent Turkey Games were held elsewhere until 2007, after which the two high schools would merge.)

On July 11, 2005, acting New Jersey Governor Richard Codey and Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack, along with other officials, broke ground in preparation for the new complex, budgeted at $180 million. $172 million of the funds were provided by the state, with Union City providing the remaining $8 million, making it one of the most expensive schools in New Jersey. Cliffside Park-based RSC Architects, in partnership with architecture firm HOK New York, designed the 360,000-square-foot (33,000 m2) school, which includes 66 classrooms. The school was one of six demonstration projects conceived and funded by the former Schools Construction Corporation, now the Schools Development Authority, according to Piscataway-based Epic Management, which served as the construction manager for the project.

In early March 2006, a large piece of the Hudson Brewery's original brick foundation was found intact, along with the base of a manhole still connected to an original sewer that opened underneath the brewery. The artifacts were removed, and officials monitored the excavation for future discoveries of other artifacts for historical preservation.

Union City High School and Athletic Complex opened for students on September 3, 2009, marking the first high school built in Union City in 90 years. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on September 25, and attended by Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Senator Bob Menendez. A subsequent opening gala was held September 26, and featured appearances from celebrities such as New York Giant Harry Carson, and actor and Union Hill High School graduate Bobby Cannavale, and performances by people such as Tito Puente, Jr. Controversy was generated when a performance by Cuban singer Cucu Diamantes was cancelled by the city's Board of Education in response to threats of protest by anti-Castro activists over Diamantes' performance in a concert in Havana, Cuba days earlier.

The commencement ceremony for the school's first graduating class was held June 23, 2010. Delivering the keynote speech to the 628 graduates was New Jersey State Associate Supreme Court Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto. More than 60% of the graduates were expected to continue their studies at institutions such as Princeton University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University and New Jersey Institute of Technology, with a total of $4.1 million earned among the class in scholarships and financial aid awards, including $600,000 in scholarships from the school. The graduates included two recipients of the Bill Gates Millennium Scholarship, a Nordstrom Scholarship winner, and a Gold Medal winner in the Hudson County Science Fair who took third place in the international competition. 26 were reported to be joining the United States Armed Forces. Graduates in subsequent years were also accepted into prestigious institutions of higher learning, including Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lehigh University, and included recipients of Division One football scholarships.

The federally-funded North Hudson Community Action Corporation's (NHCAC) pediatric health center, which is housed in the building, opened in early July 2010, in order to allow the corporation's facilities on 31st Street to expand its women's health and internal medicine capacity. The center was opened in July so that the patient flow could be monitored when students were not in school, in order to determine how to integrate the center's operations with the school's, educate students on managing their health, and allow them to utilize its services in order to decrease health-related absenteeism, once the school session resumed. Union City Superintendent of Schools Stanley Sanger indicated that eventually, health screenings would be provided to all Union City students.

On October 28, 2011, the city broke ground on the school's $930,000, state-funded Student Sanctuary, a 16,900 square foot triangular area in front of the school's southwest corner on Kennedy Boulevard at 24th Street, which will include a plant-lined walkway, a rain garden, a small amphitheater, fountain and waterfall. The Sanctuary, which will mark the completion of the school, was designed by Becica Associates L.L.C., Borst Landscape and Design, and Environmental Resolutions Inc. It will not only provide a point of relaxation to students and residents, which Student Council President Jowkuell characterized as an "oasis", but will also provide research opportunities for the school's horticultural and environment clubs.

The school was the 323rd-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 328 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2012 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools". The magazine ranked the two predecessor schools 271st (Emerson) and 285th (Union Hill) out of 322 public high schools statewide, in the magazine's September 2010 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", after being ranked 288th (Emerson) and 233rd (Union Hill) in 2008 out of 316 public high schools statewide.

In July 2012, Union City High School English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher Kristine Nazzal was named Hudson County's Teacher of the Year for 2012-2013 by the New Jersey Department of Education. Nazzal, who grew up in West New York, and began teaching in Union City 14 years prior when she taught language arts at Emerson High School, was among 300 teachers from across the United States who appeared on the September 23, 2012 episode of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams to discuss issues pertaining to education.