The building was a neighborhood school that served the Lower East Side families.

The building became a symbol of rising demographic changes in the East Side when increasing numbers of African-Americans joined the student enrollment.

[1] In 1977, the school was closed due to a federal desegregation order[2] and became Buffalo Vocational Technical Center, where students took vocational and career-oriented classes in addition to the core academics at their regular high school.

[3] In 2002, the Vocational center was ultimately closed,[4] and the building re-opened in 2005 once again as East High School.

Beginning in 2015, the East High School program began to phase out due to low test scores and graduation rates.