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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 2:05 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OhioGuy View Post
Yeah there are quite a few great pre-war schools. I used to live near Andersonville and I always appreciated Nicholas Senn High School.


Flickr: YoChicago


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Yeah I have a friend who lives across the street from it and at first I thought it was a museum or something.

They sure don't build them like that anymore...
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 2:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Growing up in Massachusetts, I frequently visited lots of pre-WWII high schools similar to what have been shown in this thread so far for sports and sometimes for AP classes or SAT stuff. What often doesn't come across in movies and TV shows set in these schools is how crappy the student experience can be. Depending on how much money the school district has spent on renovations over the years, a science class with lab work can be like stepping back in time. My high school was a late 1960s modernist mistake - but we had a freaking mass spectrometer. A neighboring high school was set in a gorgeous neoclassical building from 1890s; the building physically couldn't support the HVAC system needed for basic chem hoods.

What always gets me is when I see those California open campus style high schools in movies and shows (think Clueless or Veronica Mars). I have no way of relating to that student experience. My wife went through the Cupertino-Sunnyvale school system in the 90s and claims to have never had an indoor cafeteria. I think she's massaging the truth on that one - it's gotta rain sometime in the South Bay. But I visited her elementary school once and it legit did not have an indoor cafeteria. That seems like a lawsuit just waiting to strike.
My elementary school in Miami didn't get an indoor cafeteria until i was in 4th grade. Our assemblies and talent shows and stuff were held in the large open air courtyard in the center of the school.
High schools/Middle schools that I attended were mostly modeled after prisons it seems. No windows, large bunker-like structures that actually double as hurricane shelters.
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.6191...7i16384!8i8192
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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 6:20 PM
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The old Austin High School. Now it's being renovated for Austin Community College. Miss congeniality filmed here in the old gym. Now the gym is classrooms.

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1...oiowG3oECDQQAw

Gym Scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEBLrCGhTVM
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  #24  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 6:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
What often doesn't come across in movies and TV shows set in these schools is how crappy the student experience can be.
from my (admittedly limited) experience with being inside a few of chicago's old classic high schools, CPS seems to be doing a decent job of maintaining and updating them recently.

the in-district high school my kids would go to when they're older (if they don't lottery into one of the magnets) was built in 1929, but CPS recently did a MAJOR overhaul a handful of years ago, renovating the classrooms, science labs, gymnasium, locker rooms, pretty much all student spaces, to a decently high standard.

it's no longer a world of peeling paint, torn carpeting, flickering/buzzing fluorescent tube lighting, broken plumbing fixtures, etc.

the big catch is the HVAC system (or lack thereof). they still had to jerry-rig A LOT of thru-wall AC units because these big old beasts simply weren't built with ducts for HVAC systems back in the day, just steam pipes/radiators for heat, and "open the window" for a hopeful breeze for cooling.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 6:44 PM
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Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
My elementary school in Miami didn't get an indoor cafeteria until i was in 4th grade. Our assemblies and talent shows and stuff were held in the large open air courtyard in the center of the school.
High schools/Middle schools that I attended were mostly modeled after prisons it seems. No windows, large bunker-like structures that actually double as hurricane shelters.
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.6191...7i16384!8i8192
"The Southwood Middle School & Correctional Facility"

Went to high school in an open-campus type building in Phoenix that opened in 1996 and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I ate in the cafeteria.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2021, 8:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
My elementary school in Miami didn't get an indoor cafeteria until i was in 4th grade. Our assemblies and talent shows and stuff were held in the large open air courtyard in the center of the school.
High schools/Middle schools that I attended were mostly modeled after prisons it seems. No windows, large bunker-like structures that actually double as hurricane shelters.
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.6191...7i16384!8i8192
I don't know of really any schools in my area (Ontario) that have cafeterias outside of high schools. From my experience JK-8 you just eat in your home room, and high school you eat where ever you choose. You didn't need passes to leave the property during the lunch hour. Even when I was grades 1-5 I would go home for lunch, and 6-8 I'd usually eat at school, sometimes going out to get pizza or something from near by.

We would hold assemblies and the like in the gym. They would just get out the shitty uncomfortable chairs. In high school they had a grandstand until they built a new school, and built a cafetorium.
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  #27  
Old Posted Jun 10, 2021, 12:20 AM
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Mission High School - San Francisco

The original Mission High School building was completed in 1898 as a three-story brick school designed in the Italian Renaissance Beaux-Arts style. The building withstood the 1906 earthquake, and became a neighborhood shelter, while Dolores Park, which stands across the street from the school, became a tent city for displaced residents. In 1922, the original Mission High School was destroyed by fire. The present Mission High School complex was then constructed in a California Churrigueresque style in 1925


Last edited by twinpeaks; Jun 10, 2021 at 12:49 AM.
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  #28  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 2:23 AM
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We should also have a college/university thread. I really love the aesthetic of these older schools. Makes me want to go back to school.
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  #29  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 4:59 AM
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Salt Lake sucks in this regard.

There's only two current high school (buildings) that were built pre-war: West and South. West still exists, but South was closed in the 1980s and is now part of Salt Lake Community College, so, it's not even a high school anymore.

Still, it's all we've got:

West High:





South High:



South is a good art deco quality but again, not a high school anymore.

The best, though, was Salt Lake City High School (later changed to East - so, yeah, the three public high schools in the city were named East, South and West). But they demolished it in the 1990s because it was not structurally sound and would not withstand a major earthquake (or so they say). I really wish they had kept it:







It was replaced by the current East High (same location) that is now known as the high school used in Disney's High School Musical:



Not remotely the same - and despite its famousness ... it sucks. Especially compared to the old building.

Highland, built on the city's south-east side, doesn't fit the bill, so I won't include it.

Expanding beyond the city limits, into South Salt Lake, there was Granite High, but that was demolished a few years ago:

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  #30  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 6:14 AM
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The main one that comes to mind for me is Austin Community College's Rio Grande Campus. The building originally housed Stephen F. Austin High School and opened in 1916. This was the 3rd building that the high school had moved to, having been founded in 1881. The current Austin High School is located west of downtown on a campus built in 1975.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...ampus_2014.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephe...CCRioVista.JPG

Across the street from the old Austin High School is Pease Elementary School. Until last year when it permanently closed, this was the oldest public elementary school in Texas. It opened in 1876.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...olAustinTX.JPG
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Last edited by KevinFromTexas; Jun 12, 2021 at 6:31 AM.
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  #31  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 1:25 PM
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All but one of the public high schools in Buffalo are pre-WW2, although most have had additions constructed over the decades.


Hutch Tech
by bpawlik, on Flickr


Bennett High
by bpawlik, on Flickr


Riverside High
by bpawlik, on Flickr


Grover Cleveland High
by bpawlik, on Flickr


Lafayette High
by bpawlik, on Flickr


City Honors
by bpawlik, on Flickr

And a couple of the private high schools.


Buffalo Seminary
by bpawlik, on Flickr


Canisius High School
by bpawlik, on Flickr
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  #32  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 2:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
from my (admittedly limited) experience with being inside a few of chicago's old classic high schools, CPS seems to be doing a decent job of maintaining and updating them recently.

the in-district high school my kids would go to when they're older (if they don't lottery into one of the magnets) was built in 1929, but CPS recently did a MAJOR overhaul a handful of years ago, renovating the classrooms, science labs, gymnasium, locker rooms, pretty much all student spaces, to a decently high standard.

it's no longer a world of peeling paint, torn carpeting, flickering/buzzing fluorescent tube lighting, broken plumbing fixtures, etc.

the big catch is the HVAC system (or lack thereof). they still had to jerry-rig A LOT of thru-wall AC units because these big old beasts simply weren't built with ducts for HVAC systems back in the day, just steam pipes/radiators for heat, and "open the window" for a hopeful breeze for cooling.
I've been in a few CPS elementary schools and they were more like the nightmare you described. I imagine the better-performing schools can get more resources (either unfairly thru CPS, or via donation/fundraiser) to keep in good shape.

Of course, my 1960s suburban elementary school (in wealthy Barrington, no less) was also plagued with leaks of some kind, I remember the hallways strewn with garbage cans under the drip and safety cones. Not sure if it was the roof, duct condensation, or leaky pipes. Our (small) library was in the basement, I remember it flooded once after a storm so they gutted it and replaced all the books/computers only for it to flood again. Eventually they would tear the school down and start fresh.
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  #33  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 4:29 PM
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I've been in a few CPS elementary schools and they were more like the nightmare you described.
That's unfortunate to hear.

Fortunately for my kids, the CPS elementary school they go to just got a $25M addition to and renovation of the old pre-war building. I haven't been inside yet to check it out (stupid covid), but it looks pretty nice now from the pics I've seen.
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  #34  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 6:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
What always gets me is when I see those California open campus style high schools in movies and shows (think Clueless or Veronica Mars). I have no way of relating to that student experience. My wife went through the Cupertino-Sunnyvale school system in the 90s and claims to have never had an indoor cafeteria. I think she's massaging the truth on that one - it's gotta rain sometime in the South Bay. But I visited her elementary school once and it legit did not have an indoor cafeteria. That seems like a lawsuit just waiting to strike.
My wife grew up in the East Bay and also never had a school with an indoor cafeteria. She says that any day where it was actually raining they'd just get their food and bring it back to a classroom (the places that served the food often had an outdoor line and an indoor line, but there was no indoor seating area).
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  #35  
Old Posted Jun 12, 2021, 7:54 PM
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Those Buffalo schools are beautiful!


Quote:
Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL View Post
St. Louis has a ton of primary and secondary pre-war schools—both public and private—but due to population loss many of the public school buildings are in various stages of neglect (and more than a few have been lost). In particular, St. Louis architect William B. Ittner, who is widely accredited with revolutionizing school design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Ittner), designed most of the turn-of-the-century/pre-war public school buildings in St. Louis. A number of them have been repurposed as apartments and such, and a number are still awaiting rehab. Sticking to secondary schools per the thread, here a few of my faves:


Interesting how similar many of those St. Louis schools look to ours in Toronto. Most of the others in this thread are more unmistakably American.
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  #36  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2021, 9:12 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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I don't get the complaints about the old schools. My grade school was built in 1912 and had no mechanical problems whatsoever. It didn't have air conditioning. The gym was on the third floor and was L-shaped. The basketball court wasn't close to being regulation-size and the backboards were plywood.

For tornado drills they packed a few hundred kids in the boiler room in the basement. The maintenance guys had pinup calendars down there, which was always a highlight.

And get this: it was a Catholic school so there was a big cemetery out back that we had to walk through to get to the playground. There were funerals all the time. So WE WERE SURROUNDED BY DEATH AND DECAY.

The only really weird thing I remember happening with the building was the time when I was in a basement classroom in second grade and a lawnmower sent a baseball-sized rock through the window (which was very high since we were in the basement) and directly into the blackboard. Somehow the thing missed everyone but it had to have been going 100+mph because it put a deep dent in the blackboard. It being a Catholic school, they didn't replace it, and so for years later all teachers had to write around the missing piece of the blackboard.

Also, all of our desks were original desks from either the 1910s or 1930s expansion. There was still decades-old graffiti carved into them. You could see where they had a janitor try to belt sand something out but some of these carving efforts were just too deep.

Also, the school had no cable hookup and only 3 televisions for 900 students. It was very rare that a teacher wheeled a TV into the room and we got to watch something. I was in second grade when the space shuttle blew up in 1986 but we weren't watching it because we quite literally didn't have the ability to do so.
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  #37  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2021, 11:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Camelback View Post
I used to live behind Monroe School (museum today).
This is probably one of the most obvious examples in Phoenix metro (although it's an elementary school and not a secondary school). Others include:

Chandler High School:





Brophy, the big local Catholic school:



North High School, built in 1939, technically qualifies, but I wouldn't call it "classic." Pretty sad looking now, marred by iron fences and parking lots. But at least it's still a school, and retains the distinction of being the filming location for the Charles Barkley "I am not a role model" (that forumers of a certain age will recall).

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4802...7i16384!8i8192

And some obituaries for high schools gone before us:

The original Mesa High School--total fire loss in the 1960s:



Phoenix Union High School--for many years the oldest high school west of the Mississippi. Currently University of Arizona medical school:

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  #38  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2021, 3:22 AM
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Unfortunately Edmonton doesn't have any pre-war high schools. The best I can give you is Westmount Junior High School.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@53.55969...7i16384!8i8192
This building was as built around 1912 yet all the other buildings around it were built in the '50s. The closest pre war buildings to it are homes on 127th street.
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  #39  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2021, 4:39 AM
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^ that Westmount is a looker, though.
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  #40  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2021, 6:11 PM
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Very interesting thread!

Looking through it, I realize how different everyone's K-12 experience is depending on where in the US you went to school.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
chicago has loads of grand old pre-war highschools.

my personal favorite is Carl Schurz: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9471...!7i8704!8i4352
What strikes me about this high school is what little land area it takes up, looking at it in plan view on Google Maps; I assume the auditorium/every classroom/lab/administration offices are all in the one building, which to me is very foreign, having grown up in southern California. So these kids don't hang out at "the quad" during lunch? When I was in my early 20s, I read a book that was written in the 1930s about architecture in Los Angeles, and the author wrote that many elementary through high school kids in LA go to schools that are almost "collegiate campus-style" with separate buildings, many just single story... and I thought 'what's so unusual about that?' and I never thought of it as "collegiate campus-style."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
What always gets me is when I see those California open campus style high schools in movies and shows (think Clueless or Veronica Mars). I have no way of relating to that student experience. My wife went through the Cupertino-Sunnyvale school system in the 90s and claims to have never had an indoor cafeteria. I think she's massaging the truth on that one - it's gotta rain sometime in the South Bay. But I visited her elementary school once and it legit did not have an indoor cafeteria. That seems like a lawsuit just waiting to strike.
Again, I never really thought about my school experience growing up. I realize that the elementary school I went to from 2nd to part of 3rd grade also had an "outdoor cafeteria." If I remember correctly, I think it had some kind of big pergola or canopy or something, because we weren't eating directly in the sun, and there was a raised concrete stage for performances/assemblies and such. And when it rained, we ate lunch inside our classrooms. The elementary school I went to from the rest of 3rd grade through 6th grade had what we called a "cafetorium," which was a combination cafeteria and auditorium, which had a stage, and long connected tables and benches that folded up into the walls when not in use. For assemblies, or movie day, the benches would be folded down, but the tables would be folded into the walls. We ate lunch in the cafetorium during sunny and rainy days.
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