This is the second part of our tour of the former Carr Central High School, at 1805 Cherry Street, Vicksburg. The building has been renovated and converted into apartments, so urban spelunkers will no longer see the decay in these photographs. This time, we will explore the upper floors. Most of these photographs are from 2007, when a work crew was removing debris, floor tiles, rotted wood, and vegetation. Part I covered the
lower floors (please click the link).
First off, you had to climb the debris-covered stairs. It is amazing how the paint chipped after years of heat-cool cycles. Other than a minor problem of lead dust, it would have been easy to chip down to the bare plaster.
If you walked along the main hall, you could down into the auditorium. As you can see, it was an impressive facility in its day.
A double-length classroom led off from the opposite (south) side of the hall. With south exposure, it was a cheerful room, but probably pretty hot before air-conditioning. A coworker, who was a student at Carr, told me that was the chemistry laboratory.
This was the only bottle of chemicals left.
I liked the symmetry of this corner. I was surprised that these were green boards, not genuine slate blackboards.
A wing on the north side had a classroom with a good view.
From this wing, you could see a room way up in the roof (under the chimney). Notice the long radiators for hot-water heat. Being placed below the windows, they produce an insulating air dam.
This was the cheerful room at roof level, with windows on four sides. My friend told me this was the art classroom.
The art room was on the 4th floor and was semi-isolated from the main building. It had its own stairs and clean-up facilities.
The art class was alive with killer vines.
No wonder, the jungle was engulfing the north side of the building. This is the process of destruction described in the "Life After People" series on History Channel, which showed how nature would take over if people abruptly disappeared.
Back to the 3rd floor. Many of the rooms had suffered water damage, and trees were growing in some of them. The wood floors were laid over horizontal stringers on top of the concrete floors. Some of the oak flooring was intact, but most was ruined.
Finally, it was time to head on down via the rear fire escape. Well, maybe not - too much jungle.
If you are interested in other abandoned schools, please click the links:
Most photographs on this page were taken with a Sony DSC-R1 digital camera.
