YMCA of Greater New York. Schools Branch.

The 1852 constitution of the YMCA in New York City contained a provision for offering lectures and sermons that would assist the "spiritual and mental improvement of young men," although actual regular programming did not occur until the opening of the new building on 23rd Street. Formal educational activities undertaken at each New York City YMCA branch were consolidated in 1930 into the Education Department of the West Side Branch. In 1945, the Schools Branch was founded. Included in the Schools Branch were the McBurney School, a college preparatory school; Evening High School; the Trade and Technical School, which had its roots in the first automobile school in New York; Hervey Junior College (previously known as the New York Business Institute); and the Civil Service Institute.

The McBurney School was founded in 1916 as a six-year high school (grades 7-12) that prepared young men for college. It merged in 1924 with the Chelsea Day School, and in subsequent years with the Baldwin School, the Riverside School and the Carnegie Hill School. McBurney was housed for many years in the West Side YMCA on 63rd Street. In the 1980s, the school moved once again, this time to 20 West End Avenue. However, its new location, where the schools was surrounded by taxi depots, car repair shops, and parking lots, did not attract students and parents, and despite the millions received from selling the West 63rd Street building, the school was forced to close in 1988.

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