It was the alma mater of many people who grew up in the Great Depression and World War II and rose to prominence in the arts, literature, and other fields.

[2] Thomas Jefferson High School, located at 400 Pennsylvania Avenue, had its groundbreaking in 1922 with New York City mayor John Francis Hylan officiating.

[4] A relatively prosperous lower middle class community throughout the interwar epoch, the surrounding neighborhood of East New York faced a host of socioeconomic problems in the mid-to-late 20th century, including widespread unemployment and crime stemming from a lack of private investment (exemplified by redlining, mortgage discrimination and the gradual diminution of remunerative manufacturing jobs) amid the segregated wave of postwar suburbanization.

[2] In the photograph above, the main entrance of TJHS is clearly engraved with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, "May reverence for the laws become the political religion of the nation."

For 90 years students, and perhaps faculty, have wondered why the authorities were unable to find an appropriate quotation from Thomas Jefferson himself to grace the entrance to his namesake school.