Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer and RBG's high school turns 100

WNYC News | Apr 15, 2025

What do Carole King, Judge Judy and Chris Rock have in common?

They all went to James Madison High School in Midwood, Brooklyn.

James Madison opened in 1925 and is a typical-looking New York City public school with an astonishing number of famous alumni, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stanley Kaplan (founder of test prep company Kaplan, Inc.), former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, baseball player Ted Schreiber, writer Irwin Shaw and six Nobel Prize winners, to name just a few of the faces on the school’s Wall of Distinction. (It’s actually multiple walls; there are so many stars to note.) From 2007 to 2009, three sitting U.S. senators were all Madison graduates (Sanders, Schumer and Coleman).

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