South Philadelphia High School is a public secondary high school located in the south section of Philadelphia, at the intersection of Broad Street and Snyder Avenue, just north of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex residential neighborhood, Marconi Plaza, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and near the Passyunk Avenue urban corridor of shops and restaurants.The school, serving grades 9 through 12, is a part of the School District of Philadelphia.The school serves portions of South Philadelphia (including Southwark), and it previously served the Rittenhouse Square and Logan Square sections of Center City.HistoryOriginally built in 1907 as the Southern Manual Training High School for boys. The Philadelphia School District administrators opened the School merely as a three-year training facility for immigrant children, mostly Jewish and Italian, and children who lacked intellectual skills who "could only work with their hands". But Israel Goldstein, a student and the first alumni scholarship winner in 1911, showed school administrators that there was more promise for academics. He graduated the school at age 14 and then graduated the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 17. Goldstein became a rabbi, an author, a spiritual leader, and founder of Brandeis University in Waltham. Massachusetts. He became a leader of the Zionist movement in America and founder of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Due in part to young Israel Goldstein as an example of student possibilities, the 3-year training facility became a full four-year co-ed high school.
