Brooklyn Tech is located in Fort Greene, and is the largest high school in the United States. As of 2021, it has more students enrolled than Ithaca, Princeton, or MIT.

Fast Facts about the School

• School website: bths.edu

• Principal: David Newman

• Average SAT: 1403/1600

• Enrollment: 5,937 (the nation’s largest high school)

• This high school serves more students than…

  • Ithaca College: 5,739

  • Princeton University: 5,328

  • MIT: 4,501

School Timeline

1918

School is founded on the recommendation of Dr. Albert L. Colston, chair of the Math Department at Manual Training High School. The school’s charter would provide instruction heavily tilted toward math, science, and drafting courses.The main building is erected at 49 Flatbush Avenue Extension – in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge – and enrolls 2400 students.

1930

The school moves to its current location in Fort Greene – 29 Fort Greene Place – which is currently situated between the park, downtown Brooklyn, and the Barclays Center.

1946

Principal William Pabst oversees a major modernization of the curriculum. He allows students to structure majors from an array of science and engineering sub-disciplines: aeronautical, architecture, chemical, civil, and electrical; then later – electronics, broadcast, industrial design, mechanical, structural, and arts and sciences.

1967

A 420 foot tv tower is installed on top of Brooklyn Tech, which permits every New York City high school student, for the first time ever, to view television content as part of classroom instruction.

1970

Young women finally begin attending Brooklyn Tech. !

1993

My wife graduates from Brooklyn Tech.

1998

Leornard Riggio, former executive chairman of Barnes & Norble, and also a Brooklyn Tech alumnus, organizes a $10 million endowment fundraiser for the school. It is the first of its kind for any American public school, draws national attention, and sparks competing fundraising efforts at two of the other specialized high schools – Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

2001 (September 11)

16 alumni die in the attacks on the World Trade Center. They are: Dennis Cross '59, Ronald F. Orsini '60, Joel Miller '63, Sheldon R. Kanter '66, Stephen Johnson '75, Danny Libretti '76, Dominick E. Calia '79, Dipti Patel '81, Andre Fletcher '82, Courtney W. Walcott '82, Gerard Jean Baptiste '83, Wai C. Chung '84, Paul Innella '85, Michael McDonnell '85, Thomas Tong '87, and Paul Ortiz '98.

2013

Lee McCaskill, the principal is dismissed. This story is just too strange to recap. Read it yourself.