The School On A Hill

This is a view looking East from a neighborhood called Walnut Hill, showing West Philadelphia High School at right, with Walnut Street at left and the downtown skyline straight ahead. At twilight on the 4th of July, some kids were exploding some fireworks at the other end and I was passing by on my way to feed cats. This weedy pavement is the school's fron apron where the red brick hulk would breather masses of students in and out at the sound of an alarm bell.

This original building of the High School dates from 1912 but is now closed and there is a new and much smaller one a block away. I remember once coming across a news item in a newspaper from around 1900 stating that the body of a little boy had been found murdered in the woods that stood here then.

I've been inside a few times, accompanying a friend who gave a lecture to a class and to give one there myself. It has a hard feel to it because of its hugeness, all its steel and concrete, and its very high level of security. It prepared many of its students psychologically for prison.

there are no plans for the building yet. It would cost too much to use and a fortune to tear down. It certainly is not interesting either, but it does have seperate entrances marked Girls and Boys, telling of its early decades.

A small part of the building at the rear serves as an academy for auto mechanics and the rest is empty. But the whole behemoth gives the feeling that storage would match its personality best.

I wonder if anyone actually loves this place?