Morris High School was a high school in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It was built in 1897. It was the first high school built in the Bronx. Originally named Peter Cooper High School, the name was changed to Morris High School to commemorate a famous Bronx landowner, Gouverneur Morris, one of the signers of the United States Constitution and credited as author of its Preamble. Morris High School was one of the original New York City Public High Schools created by the New York City school reform act of 1896. In 1983, the school and surrounding area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Morris High School Historic District.
In 2002, as part of an overall restructuring and downsizing of New York City's high schools, Morris High School was closed. The building was renamed the Morris Campus. It now houses four small specialty high schools: High School for Violin and Dance, Bronx International High School, the School for Excellence, and the Morris Academy for Collaborative Study.
Notable alumni
- Sydney Beck, musicologist
- Milton Berle, comedian
- Jack Coffey, Major League Baseball player
- Judith Crist, film critic
- Jules Dassin, film director
- Anthony J. DePace, architect, known for his design of many Roman Catholic churches throughout the Northeast
- Christian Filostrat, diplomat and novelist
- Armand Hammer, industrialist
- Vincent Harding, historian
- Frieda B. Hennock, the first female commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission
- Julia Harrison, NY State Assemblywoman, 22nd A.D., and first female member of the NY City Council from the Borough of Queens
- Peter Karter, inventor
- Helen Marshall, Queens Borough President
- Kay Medford, actress
- Hermann Joseph Muller, 1946 Nobel Prize in Medicine
- Arthur Murray, dancer
- Frank A. Oliver, U.S. Representative
- Bernard Opper, All-American basketball player for the Kentucky Wildcats
- Alex Faickney Osborn, advertising executive
- Colin Powell, United States Secretary of State
- Gabe Pressman, television journalist
- Mae Questel, actress
- Victor Riesel, newspaper columnist.
- Benito Romano, attorney
- Robert Scheer, journalist
- Val Ramos, flamenco guitarist
- Romeo Santos, Bachata singer
References
- Notes
