History
Regis High School was founded in 1914 through the financial bequest of a single formerly anonymous benefactress: Julia M. Grant, the widow of Mayor Hugh J. Grant. She stipulated that her gift be used to build a Jesuit high school providing a free education for Catholic boys with special consideration given to those who could not otherwise afford a Catholic education. The Grants' former home currently houses the Vatican Observer to the United Nations, which is where the Pope stays when he visits New York City.
The school building was built to the designs of the Boston firm of Maginnis & Walsh.
The identity of the school's founding benefactor was officially kept secret for decades, though the large portrait in the school's first floor conference room titled "Julia Grant" contradicted the official policy. The online announcement of an auction that included items related to the school's founding did so as well. Finally, on October 26, 2009, a documentary film revealed her identity and detailed the circumstances of her gift. Following her husband's death in 1910, Julia Grant met with Father Hearn, S.J. and, with a stipulation of strict anonymity, gave him an envelope with the money needed to start a school to educate bright Catholic boys. When Mrs. Grant died, her children took over the funding of the school. When Lucie Mackey Grant, a daughter-in-law of Julia Grant, died in 2007, none of the Grant heirs remained to fund the school. Since then, Regis has relied primarily on the original endowment and alumni donations to keep the school tuition free. Following Lucie Mackey Grant's death, at an auction of historic items held by the Grant family, Regis bid successfully for the original golden chalice used in Mass when the school was founded in 1914.
On Saturday, May 14, 2011, a two-alarm fire destroyed the school's principal gymnasium and did some peripheral damage. The school re-opened the following Tuesday.
Read more about this topic: Regis High School (New York City)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)