The Public High School League of the Metropolitan District, or simply "Metropolitan League," as this conference was informally called, was something of a poor cousin to the New York Interscholastic Athletic Association and the Long Island Interscholastic Athletic League. New York City was much slower than Brooklyn in establishing public high schools, and it was not until the school year of 1896-1897 that the schools of Manhattan Boys (later renamed De Witt Clinton) and Bronx Mixed (later named Cooper, then Morris) were opened.
The league was formed in the spring of 1899, after four public schools sought admittance into the all-private Interscholastic League and were rejected. Undoubtedly the members of the Interscholastic League wanted to keep their organization an all-private school one, but there was probably more than a hint of class bias involved as well. The four schools—Manhattan Boys, Bronx Mixed, Jersey City High, and Brooklyn Manual Training—inaugurated the league with a track and field meet and a baseball series. Football, indoor track, handball, and basketball were added to the schedule in subsequent years. In 1900, Commercial High and Flushing High joined the league.
The New York Times, which kept its focus on the private schools in Manhattan, barely gave any coverage to activities of the Metropolitan League. With the formation of the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) in 1903, the league continued as a football organization until 1906, as the PSAL did not initially sponsor football competition.
The formation of the PSAL supposedly had its genesis in the shabby nature of the high school leagues that preceded it, but the Metropolitan League represented a bit of reformation in high school sports in the New York area, in that it was the first local league that was under faculty control, at least in theory.