Alexander Hamilton High School, also known as just Hamilton High School is a public

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

in the Castle Heights neighborhood within the Westside of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, United States. It is in the

Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a State school, public school district in Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the List ...

. It was established in 1931.

History

Alexander Hamilton High School opened in Fall 1931, with Thomas Hughes Elson as the principal. It was designed by architects John C. Austin and Frederick C. Ashley. The three-story administration building held the administration, library, and science departments and 24 classrooms. Other buildings were a manual training building, another for physical training, and a fourth for the cafeteria and "domestic science." The capacity would be 1000, with plans permitting increasing to 2500. Building costs were $125,000 for the land, $400,000 for the structure, and $200,000 for equipment. Built in the Northern Italian Renaissance style, multicolored and patterned brickwork, elaborate cast stone decoration, and a bell tower clad in verdigris copper distinguish the building. Austin and Ashley later designed Hamilton's $100,000 six-room auditorium, Waidelich Hall which opened on April 20, 1937. The hall was named after Arthur George Waidelich, the second principal at the school. On February 21, 1989, the auditorium was renamed the Norman J. Pattiz Concert Hall. A brass plaque made by the industrial arts department to commemorate the 1937 dedication was removed during renovation. Today, there are Brown Hall (which houses administrative offices, the library, and classrooms and is named in honor of Walker Brown, Principal (1940–1956), the lab building, the tech building, the humanities building, the music building, and other structures. There is a large theater hall, named Norman J. Pattiz Concert Hall, a cafeteria, two gym buildings (boys' and girls'), and a workshop building. On the west part of the campus is

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal Public utility, utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021–2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of wat ...

Distribution Station 20 and Cheviot Hills High School, a continuation school. The athletic fields include Al Michaels Field (a football and track stadium named for sportscaster

Al Michaels Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television play-by-play sportscaster for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Amazon Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television sin ...

, Hamilton's famous alum) and a community garden, the Hami Garden. The Hami Garden was a joint project funded by the South Robertson Neighborhood Council and the Hami High Environmental Club in 2009. It is maintained by community members and Hamilton High School students. Alexander Hamilton High School was in the Los Angeles City High School District until 1961, when it merged into LAUSD. In 1932, its attendance boundaries extended as far north as Mulholland Highway. In fall 2007, some neighborhoods zoned to Hamilton were rezoned to Venice High School.

Demographics

As of 2019–2020, there were 2,586 students enrolled at Hamilton High School. Enrollment by race/ethnicity: * American Indians/

Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tli ...

: 8 * Asian: 128 *

Native Hawaiian Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, Indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was set ...

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

: 5 *

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

: 671 *

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

: 1,334 *

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

: 398 * Multiracial: 42 Enrollment by gender: *

Male Male (Planet symbols, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or Egg cell, ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot sexual repro ...

: 1,196 *

Female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

: 1,390

Extracurricular activities

Academy of Music and Performing Arts

Composer Marion Vree taught music and directed the chorus at Hamilton during the 1950s.

Notable people

Alumni

Film and television

* Lizzy Caplan, actress *

David Cassidy David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor and musician. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical-sitcom ''The Partridge Family''. After completing high school, Cassidy purs ...

, actor and musician (attended, didn't graduate) * Jackie Cruz, actress * Kaitlin Doubleday, actress * Brian Austin Green, actor *

Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer, and Pin-up model, pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of ...

, actress *

Emile Hirsch Emile Davenport Hirsch (born March 13, 1985) is an American actor. His portrayal of Chris McCandless in '' Into the Wild'' (2007) earned him acclaim and multiple award nominations. Other notable roles include '' The Girl Next Door'' (2004), '' ...

, actor * Shia LaBeouf, actor *

Michele Lee Michele Lee (born June 24, 1942) is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer and director. She is known for her role as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie on the prime-time soap opera ''Knots Landing'', for which she was nominated for a 1982 Emmy A ...

, actress * Alex D. Linz, actor * Tommy "Tiny" Lister, actor * Darris Love, actor * William Margold, adult film actor and director *

Bill Mumy Charles William Mumy Jr. (; born February 1, 1954) is an American actor, writer, producer, and musician. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a child actor whose work included television appearances on ''Bewitched'', ''I Dream of Jeannie'', ''T ...

, actor * Marc Norman, screenwriter * Randall Park, actor, comedian, and writer * Paula Patton, actress *

Michelle Phillips Holly Michelle Phillips ( Gilliam; born June 4, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Described by ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine as the "purest soprano in pop music", she rose to fame in the mid-1960s with the folk rock vocal ...

, actress, singer *

Kyla Pratt Kyla Alissa Pratt (born September 16, 1986) is an American actress. She is best known for providing the voice of Penny Proud in the first Disney Channel animated series, ''The Proud Family'', and portraying Breanna Latrice Barnes in UPN's ''One on ...

, actress *

Michael Preece Michael Preece (September 15, 1936 – February 27, 2025) was an American film and television director, script supervisor, producer, and actor best known for directing the television series ''Dallas'' and ''Walker, Texas Ranger'' and the films '' ...

, film and television director, script supervisor, producer, and actor * Roger Pulvers, playwright, theatre director and translator in Japan and Australia *

Nikki Reed Nikki Reed is an American former actress and entrepreneur best known for her role as Rosalie Hale in ''The Twilight Saga (film series), The Twilight Saga'' (2008–12). Reed rose to prominence when she co-wrote and starred in the psychological ...

, actress * Robert Ri'chard, actor * Joni Robbins, voice-over actress * Steven Robman, director and producer * Will Rothhaar, actor * Stu Segall, director and producer * Carl Tart, actor * Gwen Verdon, film and Broadway actress

Law

* Evan Freed, attorney, photographer of Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign, 1968 * William Ginsburg, attorney who represented

Monica Lewinsky Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist. Lewinsky became internationally known in the late 1990s after U.S. President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an affair with her during her days as a White House intern ...

during investigations into her relationship with

President Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the att ...

* Robert Shapiro, one of the defense lawyers in the

O. J. Simpson murder case ''The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson'' was a Criminal procedure, criminal trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court, in which former National Football League, NFL player and actor O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitt ...

Literature

Albert Boime Albert Boime (March 17, 1933 – October 18, 2008) was an American art historian and author of more than 20 art history books and numerous academic articles. He was a professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles, for thre ...

, author and academic historian * Sikivu Hutchinson, author and feminist educator * Adam Kirsch, author, journalist, and critic * Olympia LePoint, author and rocket scientist * Walter Mosley, author * Joel Siegel, author and critic on ABC television

Music

* Wil-Dog Abers, singer for Ozomatli *

Fiona Apple Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter. She released five albums from 1996 to 2020, all of which reached the top 20 on the U.S. Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 chart. As of 2021, she has sold over ...

, singer-songwriter (sophomore year only) * Kevin Bivona, musician and audio engineer *

Warryn Campbell Warryn Stafford Campbell, Jr. (born August 21, 1975) is an American record producer. He has worked with a number of contemporary gospel, gospel, hip hop and Contemporary R&B, R&B artists. Campbell originally got his start as a session musician a ...

, music producer * Reeve Carney, singer-songwriter and actor *

Billy Childs William Edward Childs (born March 8, 1957) is an American composer, jazz pianist, arranger and conductor from Los Angeles, California, United States. Early life When he was 16, Childs attended the Community School of the Performing Arts sponsored ...

, pianist and composer * Julian Coryell, guitarist, singer-songwriter, and producer * Eligh, rapper, producer * Mike Elizondo, bassist and producer *

Joel Grey Joel Grey (born Joel David Katz; April 11, 1932) is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer, and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical ''Cabaret (musical), Cabaret'' on Broadway theatre, ...

, singer and actor * Murs, rapper * Jordan Hill, singer * Julia Holter, singer-songwriter * Anna Homler, visual, performance and vocal artist * Robert Hurwitz, former president of

Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch ...

* Nipsey Hussle, rapper * Silvia Kohan, singer-songwriter * Abe Laboriel, Jr., drummer * Howard Leese, guitarist * Jeff Long, bassist *

Mann Mann may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Mann'' (film), a 1999 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama * Mann (chess), a variant chess piece * ''Mann'' (magazine), a Norwegian magazine * Mann (rapper), Dijon Shariff Thames (born 19 ...

, rapper *

Omarion Omari Ishmael Grandberry (born November 12, 1984), better known by his stage name Omarion, is an American R&B singer, dancer and actor. He rose to prominence as lead vocalist of the boy band B2K, which was formed in 1998 and managed by record e ...

, singer * Mimi Page, recording artist, songwriter, producer, and composer * Ariel Rechtshaid, music producer, composer, and musician * Daniel Rossen, guitarist * Scarub, rapper, producer"Through The Mic featuring Murs and 3MG"
''The 5th Element'', May 31, 2012 * Jon Schwartz, drummer * Stu Segall, producer and director *

Shade Sheist Tramayne Rayel Thompson (born October 22, 1979), known by his stage name Shade Sheist, is an American rapper from Inglewood, California. He began his career in 2000 by contributing the single " Where I Wanna Be" to a compilation executive produce ...

, recording artist, songwriter, producer, actor *

Stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

, composer * Houston Summers, singer * Syd, singer and songwriter, member of

Odd Future Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, better known as Odd Future and often abbreviated as OF or OFWGKTA, was an American alternative hip-hop Musical collective, music collective formed in Los Angeles, California in 2007. The group consisted of rap ...

* Elle Varner, singer * Kamasi Washington, jazz saxophonist * JHawk, record producer and songwriter

Sports

Laila Ali Laila Amaria Ali (born December 30, 1977) is an American television personality and retired professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the World Boxing Council, WBC, Women's ...

, women's boxing champion * Stephen Baker, wide receiver for the 1989 Super Bowl champion New York Giants * Ronald Barak, Olympic gymnast * Nick Bravin, Olympic fencer *

Alex Hannum Alexander Murray Hannum (July 19, 1923 – January 18, 2002) was an American professional basketball player and coach. As a player, Hannum played for six different teams, most notably with the Milwaukee (later St. Louis) Hawks, where he played ...

, basketball player and coach *

Alex Hoffman-Ellis Alex Hoffman-Ellis (born August 14, 1989) is an American former professional football linebacker. After playing college football for the Washington State Cougars, he was signed in 2012 by the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League (NFL ...

, football linebacker * Gary Kirner, football offensive lineman * Peanuts Lowrey, baseball player * Rod Martin, football linebacker *

, sportscaster *

Warren Moon Harold Warren Moon (born November 18, 1956) is an American former professional Gridiron football, football player who was a quarterback for 23 seasons in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League (CFL). He spent most of h ...

, football quarterback * Clancy Smyres, baseball player * Leigh Steinberg, sports agent * Sidney Wicks, basketball player * John Wilbur, football player

Politics

Karen Bass Karen Ruth Bass (; born October 3, 1953) is an American politician who has served as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Bass previously served in the United States House ...

, 43rd Mayor of Los Angeles, former representative of California's 37th congressional district *

Howard Berman Howard Lawrence Berman (born April 15, 1941) is an American attorney and retired politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from California from 1983 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party (United St ...

, former representative of California's 28th congressional district; chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee * Paul Koretz, City of Los Angeles Council member *

Lynn Schenk Lynn Alice Schenk (born January 5, 1945) is an American politician and lawyer from California. A Democrat, she served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995. Biography Schenk was born in 1945, in the Bronx, ...

, former representative of California's 49th congressional district

Other

Arlene Klasky Arlene Phyllis Klasky (born May 26, 1949) is an American animator, graphic designer, Film producer, producer and co-founder of Klasky Csupo with Gábor Csupó. In 1999, she was named one of the "Top 25 Women in Animation" by ''Animation Magazine' ...

, co-creator of Rugrats * Greg Johnson, creator of the '' ToeJam & Earl'' and '' Starflight'' games * Larry Josephson, radio producer and host at

WBAI WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic musi ...

and

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is a public, listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed o ...

* Susan B. Nelson, activist * Norman J. Pattiz, founder of Westwood One * Ben Rich, former director of the Lockheed Skunk Works * Lilly Samuels Tartikoff, ballet dancer and philanthropist

Faculty

* Barry Smolin, singer-songwriter, radio host, and author; taught English * Marion Vree, composer, arranger; taught music

References

External links

Hamilton High home page
{{authority control

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

Educational institutions established in 1931 1931 establishments in California