Trinity School

Trinity School (also known as Trinity) is an independent, preparatory, and co-educational day school for grades K–12 located in the Upper West Side neighborhood in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, United States, and a member of both the New York Interschool and the Ivy Preparatory School League. Founded in 1709 in the old Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall Street, the school is the fifth oldest in the United States and the oldest continually operational school in New York City. In 2011, The New York Times reported that the acceptance rate for Trinity's kindergarten was 2.4% and the high school's acceptance rate was comparable. History Trinity School traces its founding to 1709, when founder William Huddleston opened the school to teach poor children in the parish of Trinity Church. Huddleston obtained books and funding for the school from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London. The school's first classes met in Trinity Church at the head of Wall Street; the first schoolhouse was built on church grounds in 1749. The building burned down two months later and had to be rebuilt. Columbia University, then King's College, was founded in that building's first floor. The first Trinity students, boys and girls, in addition to religious instruction, also learned to write plainly and legibly and were taught enough arithmetic to prepare them for employment. These eighteenth-century Trinity students were almost invariably apprenticed to trades such as blacksmith, bookbinder, carpenter, cordwainer, mason, mariner, shoe binder, and tailor. In 1789, Trinity's 56 boys and 30 girls were under the instruction of John Wood, clerk of St. Paul's Chapel at 29 John Street. Its tuition stood at seven dollars per quarter, in addition to a one guinea entrance fee. In 1838, Trinity closed admission to girls. Girls would not be readmitted until 1971. In 1889, Trinity School moved to 627 Madison Avenue (at 59th Street), and moved again a year later to 108 West 45th Street. In 1898, the trustees established the St. Agatha's School for Girls at 257 West 93rd Street as a sister school for Trinity. St. Agatha's eventually closed.