The High School of Music & Art, April 3, 1926.

The High School of Music & Art for Gifted Children opened for the spring term of 1936, in a William H. Gompert-designed school building at 135th Street and Convent Avenue. Built in 1924 for the New York Training School for Teachers and the associated New York Model School (where the training teachers taught), by the mid-1930s, the hilltop Collegiate Gothic structure housed P.S. 193 and an annex of the Wadleigh High School for Girls.

The New York Times reported that the initial Music & Art enrollment of 215 “specially gifted students” would receive instruction “not only to develop their abilities in fine arts or music but to pursue courses leading either to the academic high school diploma for college entrance or the general high school diploma.” Piano instruction was also compulsory.

Music & Art opened during the administration of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, himself an enthusiastic patron of the performing arts. In his remarks at the school’s dedication ceremony, La Guardia predicted that “in five years this will be one of the outstanding high schools in the country.” Over 70 years later, the Mayor’s prediction has been validated by the lengthy list of notable alumcross every discipline of the arts.

The “castle on the hill” campus was home to Music & Art from 1936 to 1984, when the school merged with the High School of Performing Arts upon moving into a new campus at Lincoln Center. The new facility was named the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts. Today, over 2,700 students are enrolled at La Guardia, each with a studio or performing arts concentration.

Gompert’s building is today part of the City College south campus, and includes the A. Philip Randolph Campus High School.