Erasmus Hall High School

Erasmus Hall Campus High School is a three-year public high school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, operated as part of the New York City Department of Education. It primarily serves the 10th to 12th grades. It is located on the east side of Flatbush Avenue slightly south of Church Avenue in the community of Flatbush. It was named for Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus.

Description and history

The current school consists of four buildings built between 1903 and 1940 in the Collegiate Gothic style and designed by C. B. J. Snyder, New York City's school architect. The four buildings form a quadrangle around a campus green. In the center of that green is the original building of the "Erasmus Hall Academy", the original school building, erected in 1786 as a wood structure in the Georgian/Federal style.

The academy's founders included Alexander Hamilton and former United States vice-president Aaron Burr, who later killed Hamilton in a famous duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Other founders included John Jay and Governor George Clinton. The two primary donors that were most instrumental in founding the school were Senator John Vanderbilt and Peter Lefferts. Thanks to these men's efforts the academy stands the third oldest in the state.

Famous alumni

"Erasmus" has had a number of famous and accomplished alumni. Some of the better known, including (class year), are listed below.

Pre-20th century

*John M. Berrien, (1793); Attorney General of the United States and Senator.
*John W. Hunter, (1824); New York State Senator, Congressman, and mayor of Brooklyn.
*Morris Smith Miller, (1794); Congressman and First Judge of Oneida County.
*George M. Troup, (1792); Governor of Georgia.

20th century

*Bob Arum, boxing promoter. [Berkow, Ira. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1D8143DF934A35757C0A961948260 "ARUM IS PROVEN RINGMASTER"] , "The New York Times", April 7, 1987. Accessed December 3, 2007. "Why not? After five months since the signing for the fight, the man who came from Brooklyn, who went to Erasmus Hall High School, New York University and Harvard Law School, and who worked as a taxation expert on Wall Street, for the District Attorney's office in New York City, in the Justice Department during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, and who until 1965 had no interest in boxing - in "two guys clubbing each other over the head" - was about to make a profit for himself of somewhere between $3 million and $6 million."]
*Joseph Barbera, (1928); artist; cartoonist; co-creator of Tom & Jerry cartoons.
*Jeff Barry ("Joel Adelberg"), (1955); songwriter/producer; Songwriters Hall of Fame member
*Jeff Chandler ("Ira Grossel"), (1935); actor
*Betty Comden, (1933); playwright; Broadway musical songwriter with Adolph Green
*Jane Cowl, (1902); actress, playwright (original name Grace Bailey). [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026677/Jane-Cowl Britannica article] ]
*Billy Cunningham, (1961); player and coach, Philadelphia '76ers basketball team.
*Jon Cypher, (1949); actor ("Hill Street Blues")
*Al Davis; Oakland Raiders owner, Pro Football Hall of Fame member.
*Clive Davis; Grammy Award winning record producer; Chairman & CEO BMG North America; founder of Arista Records
*Neil Diamond, attended Erasmus from 1954-1956; singer/songwriter.
*Will Downing, (1981); singer
*Norm Drucker, professional basketball official.
*Bobby Fischer, dropped out in 1960; chess champion.
*Jim Florio,(1964); former Governor of New Jersey.
*Earl G. Graves, (1952); publisher of "Black Enterprise" magazine
*Arno Gruen, psychoanalyst, psychologist and writer
*Susan Hayward ("Edythe Marrenner"), Hollywood actress.
*Eleanor Holm, (1932); Olympic swimmer
*Moe Howard, ("Moses Harry Horwitz"), (dropped out after two months, 1915) member of the Three Stooges comedy team
*Waite Hoyt; Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher for the New York Yankees and long-time broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds.
*Stanley Edgar Hyman, (circa 1933); literary critic; husband of Shirley Jackson.
*Marty Ingels, comedian; husband of Shirley Jones.
*Ned Irish; Founder of the New York Knicks, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
*Dave Jones, (1978); drummer, Hell's Bells.
*Roger Kahn, (1945); sportswriter, author of several books including "The Boys of Summer".
*Dr. Eric Kandel, (1944); winner of Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, 2000. [ [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2000/kandel-autobio.html Eric R. Kandel: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2000] , Nobel Foundation. Accessed September 20, 2007. "In 1944, when I graduated from the Yeshiva of Flatbush elementary school, it did not as yet have a high school. I went instead to Erasmus Hall High School, a local public high school in Brooklyn that was then academically very strong."]
*Lainie Kazan ("Lainie Levine"), (1958); Broadway, film and TV actress and singer
*Dorothy Kilgallen, (1932); journalist and TV celebrity.
*Bernie Kopell, (1953); actor, "Doc" on TV series "The Love Boat".
*Samuel LeFrak, (1936); real estate developer.
*Abby Lippman, Women's Health Activist and Professor of Epidemiology, McGill University.
*Jackson Longchamp, A national celebrity and protector of the American way of life.whatFact|date=June 2008
*Sid Luckman, (1935); football champion with the Chicago Bears. [http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312006/sports/the_rumble_sports_.htm?page=3 "The Rumble: AN OFF-THE-BALL LOOK AT YOUR FAVORITE SPORTS CELEBRITIES"] , "New York Post", December 31, 2006. Accessed December 13, 2007. "The five Erasmus Hall of Fame legends include Raiders owner Al Davis, Bears quarterback Sid Luckman, Yankee pitching great Waite Hoyt, Billy Cunningham and Knicks founder Ned Irish. Other sports notables include Bulls/White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, chess champion Bobby Fischer, ex-Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano, legendary NBA referee Norm Drucker and "Boys of Summer" author Roger Kahn. Erasmus also boasts Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Mae West, Mickey Spillane, Barbara Stanwyck and Beverly Sills."]
*Bernard Malamud, (1932); author and educator; Pulitzer Prize for "The Fixer", 1967, "The Magic Barrel", 1958.
*Daniel Mann, attended in 1920s, transferred before graduating; film and television director. [Honan, William H. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED9113CF930A15752C1A967958260 "Daniel Mann, 79, the Director Of Successful Plays and Films"] , "The New York Times", November 23, 1991. Accessed December 13, 2007. "Mr. Mann was born in Brooklyn, the youngest of five children of a lawyer named Samuel Chugermann. He attended Erasmus Hall High School, but quit after an argument with a physics teacher and completed his education at the Children's Professional School."]
*Kedar Massenburg, (1981); former CEO/President of Motown Records
*Dr. Barbara McClintock, (1919); winner of Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, 1983.
*Stephanie Mills, (1977); actress/singer.
*Don Most, (1970); actor, TV series, "Happy Days".
*Albert "Sammy" Narvaez, (1980 dropout); First Hispanic Marine Sergeant Major, Security Head for Trump Enterprises
*Don K. Reed, (1960): disc jockey, hosted "The Doo-Wop Shop" radio show on New York oldies station WCBS-FM.
*Jerry Reinsdorf, (1953); partial owner of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox.
*Lewis Rolland, MD, (1942); expert on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's Disease).
*Mike Rosen, talk show host
*Robert Rosen, (1970); author of the best-selling biography "".
*Sam Rutigliano, former NFL head coach.
*Arthur M. Sackler, MD (1931); art historian and collector; Collection of African and Ancient Art is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.
*Brigadier General Guy Sands-Pingot, (1974); U.S. Army Officer
*Beverly Sills, ("Belle Miriam Silverman") coloratura opera singer, attended Erasmus in the mid-1940s and transferred before graduating. [Tommasini, Anthony. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E4D7153EF937A35754C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 "Beverly Sills, All-American Diva With Brooklyn Roots, Is Dead at 78"] , "The New York Times", July 4, 2007. Accessed November 6, 2007. "But her father put an end to her child-star career when she was 12 so that she could concentrate on her education at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and the Professional Children's School in Manhattan."]
*Robert Silverberg, (1952); novelist.
*Special Ed ("Edward Archer"), rapper who mentions Erasmus Hall on his album "Youngest in Charge".
*Melodee M. Spevack (1970); actress, writer, anime voice performer
*Mickey Spillane ("Morrison Spillane"), (1936); author of detective and mystery fiction.
*Barbara Stanwyck ("Ruby Stevens"), (c. 1925); actress.
*Barbra Streisand ("Barbara Joan Streisand"), (1959); actress, singer, director, producer.Boyer, David. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EED8143AF932A25750C0A9679C8B63 "NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: FLATBUSH; Grads Hail Erasmus as It Enters a Fourth Century"] , "The New York Times", March 11, 2001. Accessed December 1, 2007.]
*Norma Talmadge, (c. 1911); silent film star
*Cheryl Toussaint, (1970); athlete; Olympic gold medalist, 1972.
*Eli Wallach, (1932); actor
*Mae West, (1893); actress, comedienne, playwright.
*D. Train, (James Williams) (1980); singer/songwriter
*Marian Winters, Broadway actress

21st century

References

External links

* [http://www.erasmushall.org/ Alumni Website]