The last such division took place in 1972 when Fordham Prep constructed a new building on its own land at the edge of Fordham's Bronx campus. During the 20th century three more high schools were added to the original four. In 1900 Loyola was founded on what was not yet the fashionable Upper East Side and in 1914 a benefactress built for Regis a Renaissance palazzo in the next block and provided the financial support to operate as a free school for Catholic boys. Now five Jesuit high schools existed in one 19-mile corridor extending from the Bronx to Jersey City. But the northern reaches of the state had not been forgotten and one last foundation was made in 1954 when in Rochester McQuaid Jesuit High School opened its doors.
Variety is the watch-word of New York Province high schools.
The schools range in size from Xavier with a student population of over 900 boys to Loyola with a co-ed student body of 200. While McQuaid looks out on acres of lush playing fields, Loyola and Regis make do with whatever dusty plots they can find in Central Park and Xavier is wholly dependent on the flinty charity of the NYC Park department. At Xavier instruction is still given in some classrooms that are over a century old while the entire building at Fordham Prep was erected within living memory and McQuaid's new auditorium has yet to be dedicated. New York Jesuit education, like the city from which the Province takes its name, is very much a work in progress. We seek to find God in all things, listen with a discerning heart and do all things to the greater glory of God.