The Knickerbocker Greys, founded in 1881, is the oldest after school activity for boys and girls ages 6 to 16. Cadets are afforded opportunities over the years to develop their character, confidence, perseverance, social skills, and problem solving in a manner unlike any other found in New York City and likely the country.
The group’s name was derived from the original uniform’s knee-length pants that were known as "knickerbockers,” and the color of the dress uniform, “Cadet Grey.” Over 4,500 New Yorkers have been members of the Knickerbocker Grey Cadet Corps over the past 134 years, including Nelson and David Rockefeller, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Pierpont Morgan Hamilton, Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., John Lindsay, and Lowell Thomas.
Today, the Greys are a part of living history and still proudly drill at the landmarked Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue at 66th Street. Boys and girls from a diverse cross section of public, private and parochial schools throughout New York City have participated in the Knickerbocker Greys.
Confidence building starts the first day of drill. The main focus of each weekly meeting, led by a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and his young officers, is to instill in each cadet a sense of self-discipline, leadership, compassion, and orderliness. As cadets master Drill and Ceremony, they become self-assured in their own abilities. Drill includes, marching, crack company, and posting of the Colors at patriotic events. As cadets rise through the ranks they develop confidence and leadership as they instruct the younger cadets. Each rank, from private to cadet colonel has new leadership challenges.
Cadets look forward to participation in various field trips, as well as, historical and civic events. All of the activities ensure that the cadets develop an esprit de corps. The corps of cadets has traditional dine-ins and reviews each year at both the Seventh Regiment Armory’s Drill Hall and other historical venues in Manhattan.
Cadets receive leadership training and are given opportunities to be in leadership roles as squad leaders, company commanders, and staff officers. Cadets develop skills such as how to motivate others, empathy, patience, supervise junior cadets, and command a group of peers. These elements of leadership help the cadets in all areas of their school lives now and with their jobs, careers and families later in life. The discipline, orderliness, fairness and kindness that characterize the Greys experience are ideals that most parents want for their children, but there are few ways of imparting them in the usual after-school activities. Thanks to the Corps' leadership, the Greys are still one way for the children of New York City to develop those attributes.