The Department of Education has decided to close Samuel Gompers Career and Technical High School because of poor performance. No new students were admitted in fall 2012, but students who are already enrolled are permitted to stay until they graduate in 2015. A new school, New Visions Charter School for the Humanties II, opened in the building in 2012.

Built in 1933 as the Samuel Gompers Industrial High School for Boys, the building has lovely architecture, according to a Lehman College blog.

The school has long struggled against the realities of life in a rough neighborhood. An Insideschools reviewer in 2002 said the Tiffany chandelier lamps were masked to protect against theft, and bars were been placed on all windows to keep vocational and technical instruments from vanishing.

Still, the reviewer found reason for hope: “The towers where students of a bygone era constructed radios are today the labs where budding engineers build robots. Special education students who would likely be overlooked elsewhere here receive meaningful, and very marketable, trade skills…. Dignitaries including Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and NBA star Alan Houston have all visited to acknowledge the progress the school has made,” according to the 2002 review. (Jacquie Wayans, December 2002, updated September 2012)