Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts

Saturday, February 9, 2019

The Mystery School in Flora, Mississippi

In late December, my wife and I drove through Flora and explored some side streets. On NW 4th Street, we saw a formal Works Progress Administration-style building with eagles. Quick stop, check it out.
A modern sign stated Superintendant's Office. An older sign showed "Flora Middle School." But the building is clearly older than the era of middle schools. Back then, if students in the middle grades had their own building, they were in a junior high school. So how old is this building? Who was the architect? The building is unoccupied now, the main hall behind the door a dusty mess.
Come to find out, there is a mystery as to the exact age of this building. My friend, Suzassippi, wrote about the conflicting origins in her post in Preservation Mississippi. This may be the former high school from 1922. Or, it may be a 1937 building designed by the architect, Overstreet. The high school was torched by the night policeman. Maybe what we see if the remnant of the 3-floor high school, but only partially rebuilt with one floor remaining. Read Suzassippi's article for a much more in-depth review of this building.
This is the 1938 high school, but it looks like a different building to me. The eagles and door mantle are up on a second floor level. Were they moved down one level?
The eagles and medallions look like the decorative elements you see on many Works Progress Administration buildings around the United States. As written in Wikipedia, "the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing infrastructure to support the current and future society. At its peak in 1938, it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration." In older posts, I wrote about the National Youth gymnasium in Edwards. Regardless of the mystery surrounding the origin of this building in Flora, we see how infrastructure projects in the past helped set the stage for our current society.

These frames are digital images from a Moto G5 mobile phone. (Sorry, no film photographs this time.)

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Old Hattiesburg High School - neglect and decay

Thomas Rosell wrote an article for Preservation Mississippi on November 18, 2015, titled Not Good News from Hattiesburg. He documented the continuing collapse of the historic Easton High School. Thomas's article jogged my memory, and I found some photographs that I took in 2011 during a quick drive through town of the Old Hattiesburg High School at 846 North Main Street. 
This must have once been a handsome and proud building. I had never seen it before and was struck that such an edifice could be abandoned so carelessly. I read in the Hattiesburg American that Hurricane Katrina caused severe damage in 2005, followed by arson in 2007.
I was alone and did not want to venture inside, but I took some photographs of the doorways. Notice the steel bracing behind the handsome limestone entry porch. Hmmm, do our contemporary mega-schools have limestone entry halls?
Like many schools in the early 20th century, there were separate Boys and Girls entrances. But there may be good news: a November 16 article in the Hattiesburg American describes a proposal to develop the building into "age-restricted" housing. 
On a more optimistic note, the Italian Renaissance Revival-style Union Station and New Orleans & Northeastern Passenger Depot, at 308 Newman Street, has been restored and serves as an intermodal transportation center. The city acquired the building and land in 2000 and completed a 5-year, $10 million renovation in 2007. The Grand Hall is now used for art exhibits and social events. It's nice to see gorgeous old buildings like this still in use and respected for their architectural uniqueness.

Photographs taken with a compact FujiFilm F31fd digital camera.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Before Restoration: the Carr School, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Part I

For three decades, the former Carr Central High School was abandoned and a blight to motorists driving on Cherry Street. According to the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation, the school was "designed in the Tudor Gothic style by William Stanton, a well-known architect who had designed many religious, public, commercial and residential buildings across Mississippi.  The school was built in 1924 by the E. G. Parish Construction Company of Jackson, Tennessee, at a cost of $220,000.  It was named in honor of John P. Carr who had served as the superintendent of the Vicksburg Public Schools for 18 years prior to the completion of the school." The sturdy brick building served as the high school from 1932 until 1958, when the H.V. Cooper High School opened. Afterwards, the building became a junior high school but closed permanently in 1979.
This was the south side in 1993, with vines growing up the side and a jungle out back. This is a 4×5-inch Polaroid sepia instant print (a superb medium). The pile of brush in the back covers the remains of the gymnasium, which was in use in the mid-1980s but was subsequently torched.
The school was built on a height of land, a great location to catch breezes in a pre-air conditioning era. But the location also made it plainly visible to visitors heading downtown from I-20 on Cherry Street, a disgraceful mess.
In 2006 or 2007, Mr. Webber Brewer, a Vicksburg contractor and builder, bought the school and hired a work crew to clean out the debris. His intention was to install high-end apartments. Mr. Brewer graciously let me take photographs inside. It was a perfect site for decay photography, so we will start with the lower two floors. Mr. Brewer never completed his project, and the building remained empty for another five years. Just recently, a developer finished converting it into the Carr Central Apartments, so this is a good time look back at the years of neglect.
Coming up the steps from Cherry Street, a student would see the plaque showing the Board of Mayor & Aldermen.
Continuing up the main steps, our student would have entered a rather severe entrance hall. The office was to the left. I suppose you checked in here if you were late and awaited your discipline or browbeating.
The steps in front ascended into the auditorium.
This was an impressive-sized space. The windows on the left lined hallways allowing students to see activities on the stage. This 2002 photograph was a Kodachrome slide taken with a 20mm Russar lens on a Leica - very difficult to scan.
These were storage cabinets on the stage.
The basement had classrooms and a lot of debris.
Because of the big windows, most rooms had plenty of light, unlike modern prison-block schools that require constant florescent lighting.
The cafeteria was really interesting. It was in the basement, but the north wall had widows to let in some light. Nevertheless, these were long exposures with the camera on a tripod.
The kitchen was a gloomy mess with some big holes in the floor. The doors with portholes led to the sitting area. The 2002 frame is another Kodachrome taken with the 20mm Russar lens.
Next to the kitchen was a dim pantry with shelves. I can imagine the canned peas, salty beans, and other health food from that era.
Proceeding further back in the building, there was a locker room or bathroom complex. In the next article, we will look at the upper floors.

Most of the 2007 photographs were taken with a Fujifilm F31fd compact digital camera. This was a 6 mpixel unit with a unique sensor and excellent, clean jpeg output. All of the photographs in the building were tripod-mounted.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Abandoned Utica High School, Utica, Mississippi

Utica is a small town in Hinds County about half way between Vicksburg and Crystal Springs. Like many towns throughout Mississippi, especially in the Delta, that I have described in these pages, Utica must have been active and prosperous decades ago. Today, it is a sad place; most of the stores are boarded up, there is little commercial activity. A few years ago, a block of the former commercial shops on Depot Street were dismantled for their bricks. Drive west out of town on West Main Street, turn left on Carpenter Street, and the old high school is on the left. Built in 1948, it is a traditional brick building with large windows and a cheerful look.
The large windows date to the time before air conditioning was installed in schools, and the natural light reduced the need for fluorescents.
Two of my friends attended Utica HS. One of them told me that it originally was for African-American students in grades 9-12. Students in grades 1-8 attended Mixon Elementary Colored School, a few miles north. In 1970, Utica's schools were integrated, and the first mixed black and white class met in Utica HS that year. It was renamed Utica Consolidated High School. With a satellite building to the east (now a grass field), the new consolidated school held about 800 students in six grades, with about 500 in high school.
The building has a fallout shelter in the basement. That dates it to the early cold war era, the time of "duck and cover." I recall air raid practice in elementary school in New York City in 1961. My grandmother lived in Berlin in World War II, and from her descriptions of bombings, I was familiar with the concept of a shelter.
The inner hallways were decorated with that terrible green industrial paint you see in mid-20th century schools and asylums throughout the country.
This building is still in reasonably good condition. As usual, I can't understand why a school system abandons a facility in sound condition. You wonder who really benefits from new school construction -  empire-building by bureaucrats perhaps? Kickbacks from the construction trade?
The transoms are another example of ventilation in a pre-air-conditioning era.
The Gold Waves were the basketball team.  They won many athletic events.  The trophy racks and the fantastic purple wall were in the athletic building just to the south of the main school. The roof of the field house is collapsing now and the gymnasium is a mess.

Photographs are from a Panasonic G1 digital camera with Lumix 14-45 mm lens, tripod-mounted.