Alumnus on a mission to chronicle Clinton

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Danny Schechter entered DeWitt Clinton High School in 1956 with the image fresh in his mind of gangs warring for control of urban classrooms

People joked that recess was for “carrying out the wounded,” he said.  

But Mr. Schechter, dubbed the “news dissector” from his radio show days, said scenes of rivaling mobs were quickly replaced with days laughing with comedian Robert Klein, cheering for the ferocious Governors sports teams and editing the school’sClinton News

Mr. Schechter, who grew up in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in Van Cortlandt Village, credited the school with sending him into a producing career at 20/20 and the documentary industry, as well as propelling thousands of Bronxites before him into the middle class.

As an alumnus who recounts the school’s legacy with pride –– a list that includes the creators of Spiderman, Batman and Casper the Friendly Ghost, James Baldwin, 55 state supreme court judges and dozens of professional athletes from Sugar Ray Robinson to Nate “Tiny” Archibald ––  Mr. Schechter set out to chronicle the school in a documentary. 

The documentary will recount Clinton’s Manhattan beginning to its recent appearance on a list of “priority” schools that have been threatened with closure if their graduation rates and state exam scores don’t improve.

“It’s been a mirror of events in America over a course of a century; there was a civil right protest, there were anti-ROTC protests; it was a battleground for competing ideas. Yet despite the differences, there’s a kind of unique sense of solidarity and social cohesion,” said Mr. Schechter, a 1960 alumnus and the film’s director. “It’s not just an exercise in nostalgia, not just a salute to the great men theory of history … We’re exploring how one of the largest high schools in America is facing hard times, battling for its existence because of forces that are outside of its control.”

Dewitt Clinton High School, Danny Schechter, legacy, history, Sarina Trangle,
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