The Julia Richman High School was founded in 1913 as an all-girls commercial high school in Manhattan and was named after Julia Richman, the first woman district superintendent of schools in New York City.  Construction started on the present building in 1922 and the new building was dedicated two years later and it changed to co-educational in 1967.

In 1993 the building was redesigned from a single school into a multi-age, multi-service learning community with six autonomous, public, small schools  forming the Julia Richman Education Complex.

In 1984 for the start of season 4 Fame returned to New York for location filming  and used the Julia Richman building,  located at 67th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue  as the entrance to the School of the Arts. Replacing the Knowledge is Power sign with one that School of the Arts. Again using the same font as the building. 

Filming took place in July 1984 and the location featured heavily in the first two episodes of the season "Indian Summer" and "Czech Mate" but then a studio set was used for the rest of season 4 interspersed  with clips of the Bradbury Building. 

The cast returned to New your City in 1985 and 1986 for Season 5 and Season 6 and the location featured again in those seasons. 

Julia Richman Building Wikipedia Page