HSFI serves grades 9 through 12 and is a part of the New York City Department of Education.

Students must complete an application to the Board of Education, take the school's exam that includes an art aptitude test, and submit a portfolio.

In March, 1926, Mr Mortimer C. Ritter, with Miss Jessie R. Dutton and Mr. Federick G. Bruck came to the third floor loft of the Greeley Arcade Building and with two classes, one in dressmaking and the other in garment cutting, organized what was to develop into the Central Needle Trades High School.

[9] Construction of the murals (and the school building) were part of the US federal government's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program.

[5] The murals "[portray] in dramatic and moving fashion the long generation of hope and despair, and the high standard of social and industrial accomplishment in the needle trades.