The fight for a new home

A frontpage of El Diario/La Prensa with the headline “Outrageous!” marked the before and after in the history of Gregorio Luperón High School, as its principal, Juan Villar, revealed.

The headline denounced the serious crisis in overcrowding at the school, which back then was located in a former furniture store building on 181st Street in the Washington Heights area.

The article was published on Jan. 13, 2003, with the subtitle: “318 students are crowded into Gregorio Luperón school. It does not have an auditorium or library, and lacks other essential services.”

Villar explained what the story triggered. “It was the starting point for a victory that would come two years later, when the Department of Education decided to construct a new building for us.”

Luperón was founded in 1994, with the goal of educating high school students who recently arrived to the United States. In 1998, a community movement to obtain a new location for Luperón emerged. It included about 18 people, led by Villar and current Councilman Ydanis Rodríguez, then a teacher at the school.

The group tried to meet with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “but he never agreed to see us.”

Politicians from the area weren’t interested either. By 2001, Rodríguez and Villar were the only ones left from the original 18. Instead of giving up the fight, they decided to change their strategy by attending all the public hearings of the Department of Education (DOE).

“But we didn’t see anything happen. Until one day, when El Diario reporter Claudia Zequeira, sent by Gerson Borrero, who was the editor-in -chief then, came to Luperón. Ten days later, the cover that changed everything was published,” Villar said.

El Diario continued to bombard the DOE with other articles and editorials like: “The school system failed Luperón.”

Then, in August 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially announced the construction of the new building for this school, which is now located on 165th Street in Washington Heights.