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LaGuardia Arts

LaGuardia Arts is a specialized public high school that provides a both a conservatory arts and college preperatory education. The High School of Music and Art was founded in 1936 (in a building at 135th Street) and the High School of Performing Arts was founded in 1948 (in a building on 46th Street).

The two institutions merged in 1961 in anticipation of a move to a new facility in the then-new Lincoln Center although the plans stayed on the drawing board for over a decade. Ground was finally broken for the new building in 1973, but the city's budget crisis in the mid 1970s delayed completion and opening of the building until the fall of 1984. The new building was then named after Fiorello H. Laguardia (1882-1947), the former Republican mayor who had been instrumental in the founding of the predecessor institutions during his tenure.

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