Whatever Happened To ... Madison High?

With graduation season upon us, it’s time once again to look back at a local high school that is no longer around.

In past installments, we remembered Cardinal Mooney, St. Agnes and West High. This time, we look back at Whatever Happened to…Madison High School?

Madison was on Epworth Street in southwest Rochester. Opened in 1922 as a junior high school, Madison was converted to a high school 12 years later and remained that way until it was closed in 1981.

The school had serious problems in its last years, including most notably a 1975 in-school shooting of a hall sentry who was shot while breaking up a fight between students. News stories reported Madison’s low test scores and high absentee rate and called Madison the “most underused high school” locally and “the most racially isolated school in the district.”

But it was still alma mater to thousands of students.

The final graduating class included 14 students inducted into the National Honor Society, and the school’s powerhouse basketball teams won several Section V titles, including in 1977 and 1980. The school’s teams were called the Wilson Parker Bears and the school colors were purple and gold.

Ramona Murray, a 1976 graduate, remembered dedicated teachers, the school’s literary magazine, “excellent” home economics and art classes and visitors who came to Madison such The Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Alex Haley.

“There were so many things that we learned that would help you in life,” said Murray, who owns a beauty salon on Chili Avenue. “I was a senior class officer … When people told me about (the problems), I couldn’t picture that. I never saw anything like that.”

Calvin Cheek had to transfer after his junior year when Madison closed. He graduated from East High in 1982 and said not getting the diploma from Madison “really hurt.”

Cheek was in a program at Madison for students who excelled in math and science. His Madison experiences, he said, helped prepare him for his career as a respiratory therapist.

“They got us summer jobs at Kodak and Xerox,” said Cheek, who now lives in Maryland. “There were a lot of us who excelled.”

Madison was built on the site of a former quarry and had about 1,400 students when the school opened in 1922. When grades 10-12 were added in 1934, enrollment grew to nearly 2,300.

Land south of the Madison campus was converted in 1945 to an athletic field with a running track, baseball and football fields and tennis courts. Alumni from the 1950s reminisced in later news stories about Friday night dances in the gym and after-school get-togethers at Critic’s Ice Cream Shop on Main Street. By the end of the '50s, things were changing quickly — half of Madison’s students were African-American and racial tensions increased.

The school started an open-house program called “James Madison Week” in 1964 so community members could visit and see what the school was like. The student chairwoman in 1967 said the experience could change a lot of opinions. “Many people have the wrong idea about Madison,” she said. “There are a lot of good kids here and we want to show that the place isn’t a jungle.”

Eldridge Cleaver, a leader of the Black Panther Party, spoke at Madison (and at the University of Rochester) in 1968. News stories the following year mentioned Madison’s new cafeteria and library renovation.

But the school’s reputation continued to get worse, especially after the shooting in 1975.

As Michael Zeigler wrote in a 1977 Democrat and Chronicle story, “If you were to ask a Rochester City School District student or parent which high school would be the worst to attend, chances are that Madison would top the list.”

The story also mentioned fights on the way to and from school and assaults on teachers.

Johnny H. Wilson, who was principal from 1971 until Madison closed, said the school’s location made it look like a factory.

“How many schools in the city have you seen with streets running on three sides, just 20 feet from the building?” he said in the Zeigler story. “We need some campus atmosphere. Environment is a primary factor.”

A neighborhood group unsuccessfully floated a plan to improve the campus. Plans to close Madison were announced as a “cost-saving” matter in spring 1981. A parent group fought the decision in court, but to no avail.

The final graduation ceremony was bittersweet, as noted in a 1981 Democrat and Chronicle story.

“There’s nothing to come back to,” one student said. “They think because we’re seniors we don’t care. My whole family went to school here … We’re gonna miss this school.” Another student was quoted as saying, “It has been too important a factor in our lives to be abandoned.”

Yet it was. Madison High stood vacant for two years before it was demolished in 1983.

“They can tear it down … but there are thousands of hearts that will foster the seeds of this school,” a 1958 graduate said in a 1983 Democrat and Chronicle story. “It will never go away.”

A Madison High “family reunion” is being held this summer, with events planned for Aug. 5 at the Holiday Inn Downtown and Aug. 6 at Genesee Valley Park. Murray, one of the organizers, said another reunion was held a few years ago.

“We’re going to have 10 or 12 teachers we’re going to recognize for making a positive impact on our lives,” she said, adding, “We had so many productive graduates who came to the (earlier) reunion.”

Cheek, another of the organizers, said former Madison students from all over the country are coming to this year’s reunion.

“The Madison family is still strong,” he said. “They want this.”

Incidentally, the district later opened the James Madison School of Excellence as a middle school on Genesee Street. That school, since turned into the Wilson Foundation Academy, had no ties to Madison High.

Alan Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

Coming up

A Madison High “family reunion” is being held this summer, with events planned for Aug. 5 at the Holiday Inn Downtown and Aug. 6 at Genesee Valley Park. Former Madison students from all over the country are expected.

About this feature

“Whatever Happened To? ...” is a feature that explores favorite haunts of the past and revisits the headlines of yesteryear.

Have an idea you’d like us to explore? Email us at [email protected].