History
The school is named after writer Washington Irving. The building in which the school is located was designed by the architect C.B.J. Snyder and built in 1913. The original building is eight stories high, though the extension on 16th Street designed by Walter C. Martin and built in 1938, is eleven stories high.
The school had been located on Lafayette Street, but because the student population was growing at a rapid rate, a decision was made to move the school to another location, and land was purchased at 40 Irving Place. The school started out as a branch of Wadleigh High School, known at first as Girls' Technical High School, the first school for girls in the city. In 1913 the name changed to Washington Irving. Many years later the school became co-ed. Currently there are more than 2,000 students.
In the period that Hector Xavier Monsegur (Sabu) attended Irving, 55% of the school's students graduated with their classes.
As of September 2012, the Washington Irving School Campus is shared by four independent schools: Washington Irving High School, the High School for Language and Diplomacy, Gramercy Arts High School and the Academy for Software Engineering.
Read more about this topic: Washington Irving High School (New York City)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)