On Oct. 29, 1929, the most devastating day in the history of the New York stock market, Wall Street began its great economic descent. But on the same day in the northern Bronx, people were casting aside the calamity on Wall Street and celebrating the arrival of a new high school building.
More than 2,000 people crowded through the marbled halls to the auditorium of DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway to hear Mayor James J. Walker inaugurate the ambitious all-boys institution, which cost the city $3.5 million. Mayor Walker remarked, “This temple of education will well repay us even after we are gone, by training future generations to be good citizens.” Indeed, Clinton’s impact would not only give back to New York, but repay American society in significant ways.
Its alumni include Ralph Lauren, James Baldwin, Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men), Richard Rodgers (writer of 42 Broadway scores, including “Oklahoma!”), and more.