John Philip Sousa Junior High School

John Philip Sousa Junior High School (also known as JHS 142, MS 142 and John Philip Sousa Middle School) was a middle school located on Baychester Avenue, across the street from Cardinal Spellman High School, in the Edenwald section of the Bronx in New York City, adjacent to Seton Falls Park. The school was named after John Philip Sousa and opened in 1958 or 1959. The school celebrated its golden jubilee in December 2008. After the school's closing in 2015, JHS 142's building became an educational campus. Academic standards The school had the city's only Korean language class. History The school opened in either 1958 or 1959 at a cost of $3.6 million. Early in 1960, student Gail Bartley received a letter from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev after she asked him to contribute something to the school's yearbook for its inaugural graduating class. Khrushchev was the only world leader to have replied to students (U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower never replied) after they started a letter-writing campaign asking for a written contribution to be included in the first yearbook at the school. The contribution, which was delivered in person by a Soviet diplomatic officer based in New York, was rejected by the New York City Department of Education for unknown reasons. By 1961, there were allegations that the school building had serious defects. Cinder blocks had broken apart and fallen across the auditorium in 1960, though no one was injured. One engineer said that when the building opened, it had 1,200 defects. The defects were investigated by the Bronx County District Attorney.