Old schools


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Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: May 09, 2013 11:37PM

My old elementary/grammar school Isaac Newton Arnold, was located at Armitage and Burling in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. It was built in 1884, and unfortunately, I understand that it was destroyed by fire in 1959. In the late 40s, kids threw rocks at its windows. I imagine Chicago has many aging schools that have been vandalized. Has your old elementary school survived?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2013 11:17AM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: tomcat630 ()
Date: May 10, 2013 03:25AM

St. Peter Canisius school was at around 5500 west North Av in North Austin.
The church is now closed, and original school closed maybe 15 years ago?

In 1960, they built an annex at Lavergne and North for Grade 1-3, where I went 1967-70. Now long gone, part of shopping area at Cicero and North. Most of lot was old CTA repair shop.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Lance Grey ()
Date: May 10, 2013 04:21AM


William H. Prescott School. 1632 W. Wrightwood (at Ashland & Marshfield) survives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2013 01:44AM by Lance Grey.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: tom12ga ()
Date: May 11, 2013 11:26PM

nordsider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My old elementary/grammar school Isaac Newton
> Arnold, was located at Armitage and Burling in the
> Lincoln Park neighborhood. It was built in 1884,
> and unfortunately, I understand that it was
> destroyed by fire in 1959. In the late 40s, kids
> threw rocks at its windows. I imagine Chicago has
> many aging schools that have been vandalized. Has
> your old elementary school survived?

From the best of my recollection, they must have rebuilt Arnold after the fire, and later it was closed. In 1979, as a grammar school student, I attended Robert A. Waller High School for German...I was the only student in the class and the Board of Ed decided that there was nothing wrong with tutoring me in the language.

Arnold School had been re-purposed as District 3 offices, and I attended several district-wide competitions there (science fair, history fair, and extemporaneous speech competition). That building still stands to this day, but I am not certain that "Arnold Elementary School" is still visible...I tend to remember them as aluminum channel letters on the outside of the building.

Also, Robert A. Waller was re-named in 1980 to Lincoln Park H.S.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: May 12, 2013 10:11AM

tom12ga,

I was aware of a new building across from Waller/Lincoln Park H. S., from an Internet site regarding CPS schools. The old CPS site seems to be no longer in existence; it had shown an old photograph of Arnold. By the way, it is interesting to me, that in the year that I graduated from Arnold -- 1952 -- Jesse White, the Illinois Secretary of State, graduated from Waller/Lincoln Park.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 04:54PM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: tom12ga ()
Date: May 12, 2013 01:22PM

You may also find [url=http://www.archive.org/stream/juveniledelinque56unit/juveniledelinque56unit_djvu.txt]this article[/url] of some interest to you, especially if you had the same principal (Mr. Thomas Farrell) during your time at Arnold.

Btw. I would also be interested in seeing the old photograph of the school if you can still put your hands on it.

Thanks,
Tom.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: May 12, 2013 04:59PM

Tom,

Thank you for the article. I never thought that window breakage at Arnold would ever be a topic in a Senate hearing. The principal at Arnold at the time of my graduation in 1952, was Jack Kahn.

I will try to find the photograph of Arnold.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2013 10:40AM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: May 15, 2013 01:09PM

Tom, This photo -- not the best -- is of Isaac Newton Arnold on its final day.





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2013 10:49AM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Elf Odin ()
Date: May 26, 2013 05:16PM

My school's been closed for years; might even be gone by now. St. Bonaventure, at Diversey and Paulina.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Chipast ()
Date: May 27, 2013 11:50PM

I'm not sure if the building is gone, Even if the school closed down.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: bwalsh ()
Date: June 13, 2013 10:58PM

Yes, my schools are still being used - went to K & 1st at Stevenson at 80th & Kostner and then 2-8 at St. Bede's at 83rd & Kostner. In fact they just built a big addition onto Stevenson.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Paul Petraitis ()
Date: June 16, 2013 12:05PM

Again here on the far south side (Helloooo!)we had a lot of little "Cook County Common Schools" before being absorbed by the City of Chicago in 1890...one (built 1858)is still standing as a house at 122nd near Michigan and another (built 1882)has been moved off its original site near Kensington and Michigan to serve as a church on 116th and State. Grammar scholl attendance was not manditory until 1888, before that kids worked the family farm, attending a few classes over the winter break., High School was a luxury!

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: rjmachon ()
Date: October 05, 2013 07:34AM

My grade school was Saint Sylvester in Logan Square and it is still open as well as the church.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: scrisel ()
Date: October 07, 2013 04:36AM

I attended the old Healy on 30th and Wallace in Bridgeport from 1955 thru 1960. When they built the New Healy next-door to the old one. Our 6th thru 8th grade classes were moved to the new building. At the same time the 6th thru 8th grade students from other schools in the district were sent from their respective schools to the new Healy.
The old Healy was phased out over a short period of time, The old building was then used to house Richards H.S. for some years. Richards later moved to 35th and Wallace. The old Healy building stood vacant for a short time, and was then demolished.
I truly miss the old Healy classrooms and their large ceiling fans and huge windows. We used a long wooden pole with a small hook&knob assembly on the end to operate the fans and to open & close the windows. The hardwood desks with the empty inkwells and the cast iron supports and mounts. The hardwood floors and the feel and smell of the room all somehow made me feel at home.
We had our own class Flags, and held a Pledge Of Allegiance ceremony each morning, which included singing the National Anthem. The Flag Bearers were honored to be chosen for the task.
We were taught all the essentials in one room, with the same teacher all year. I recall moving to a "Music Room"occasionally, but we had a Piano in our room as well. The Principal was Mr. Gratch at the time of the move and he remained in his position as long as I was there. At some point Mr. Vincent Castro (Castrogiovani) took over as the next Principal.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Mornac ()
Date: October 12, 2013 02:01PM

I attended St. Gertrude grammar school in Edgewater (class of '72). It closed in the '80's and became part of the Northside Catholic Academy - a sort of collective school of several parishes who could no longer operate on their own due to decreasing numbers. I attended high school at St. Gregory's - one of the few parish high schools on the north side (along with St. Benedict's). It was near Bryn Mawr and Ashland and it just closed this past spring. I live a block away from Senn High School who are currently celebrating their 100th year ("Senntenial" as they're calling it)

I recently learned that Senn had a formidable High School Band in the early part of the 20th century. [url=http://www.lipscomb.edu/windbandhistory/RhodesWindBand_09_AmericanSchoolBand.htm]They won some national championships according to thei story.[/url]

Here are some photo's a visit to the school by John Phillip Sousa in the 1920's:





And some of Sousa conducting Senn's bands:





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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Sit and Stew ()
Date: October 22, 2013 01:13AM

The final 2 shots of JP Sousa make me think 1917-1918, final years of the war. Grant Park, the uniforms, the fact that every WW1 drive was hosted there.....

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Mornac ()
Date: October 22, 2013 01:50AM

You may be on to something Sit. In the second to last photo, that looks like the south wall of the Art Institute over Sousa's shoulder which would make that building across Michigan Ave. the Santa Fe building. The bottom photo seems to be looking south on Michigan from the corner of Van Buren. Anyone concur?

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: davey7 ()
Date: October 22, 2013 05:17PM

I remember those pictures. I used to live across the street from Senn. I think the pictures are before the east wings were built.

Yes, that's the Fine Arts building in the last photo. I think that must be the dedication of the Paris Metra entrance to the Van Buren station.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: ARNO1 ()
Date: November 05, 2013 06:47PM

Nordsider and Tom12ga,
I am a newbee to this website and stumbled upon it purely by accident;
I searched the Internet for pics\ infos on my first school in the U.S. (I.N.Arnold
elementary School) and lo & behold, I found your picture of the burning school!
First off, I thought I'd give you a little of my history: We were immigrants from Hanover Germany living in the U.S. since April of '56. I was only 5 years old when I started Kindergarten under a Miss Uhr in the "basement" of Arnold school and yes,I DO remember our principal was a Mr. Farrell. We lived at 639 W. Armitage on the 2nd floor and our cousins lived on the 3rd floor of the same building.This was directly across from the then Waller H.S. (Now Lincoln Park H.S.) I hardly spoke any english at this time and had a hard time of it at school as a result. I vaguely remember going with my cousins in Arnolds assembly hall to see a puppet show of Pinocchio just before our 1958 Christmas vacation. One night after 1959 new year (just before we were to return to school) at around 8:00 p.m. I was upstairs playing with my cousins and Heidi, my oldest cousin looks out the kitchen and shrieks " O mein Gott, die Schule brennt!"( Oh my God, the schools burning!)
We all ran to the window and could see huge flames leaping from the back and the roof of the building. Being only 5 years old It made a deep and psychologically disturbing impression on me ... Our family was very religious and they all held a prayer meeting at this time but I managed to sneak downstairs to our residence just to watch the fire... I was just mesmerized by it all and later when my parents came down, gave me a tongue lashing and told me to go to bed, I couldn't sleep all night and watched the fire into the morning hours when the Chicago Fire Dept. finally had the fire under control, although most of I.N. Arnold school was a smoking shell.
Well, as a result, we were off for another 2 to 3 weeks until the authorities figured out where to put all of us! Eventually I was re-united with my kindergarten class (Miss Uhr) at a "Boysclub" or YMCA building not far away, only for about a week. Thereupon I was transferred to Walter E. Newberry School where they had a really mean principal named Miss Peterson who used to scream,slap and otherwise abuse us kids! I was supposed to be returned to Kindergarten, but she told my Aunt (who took care of us) that I was "too tall"(!) for kindergarten and was put in the 1st grade where I received 3 "U"s on my report card in the springtime...Duhh...'wonder why? Incidently, Mr. Farrell was now also sharing "principalship" with this Miss Peterson at Newberry.
Anyway, I used to walk home from Newberry school and I'd always try to sneak into the doors of the burned out Arnold school out of curiosity but was always caught by a black crossing guard policelady who brought me home to mother by my ears and got a licking from mom every time!
We moved to the 2600 N. Burling St. Block in April of '59 and I attended Louisa May Alcott School on N. Orchard St. until 4th grade when my family moved to the suburbs in 1963.
From time to time in my later years I was always curious ABOUT that Arnold School fire.. HOW did it happen and WHO or WHAT started it?: I would go on line searching news archives and any kind of leads...but always drew a blank until
today Nov. 5th,2013 when I came upon this website and your pictures and articles!
Would you or anyone reading this have any more information\pictures regarding
this event? Please forgive my "longwindedness"in this message...I'm just very curious.
Sincerly, Arno Riewe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2013 02:15PM by ARNO1.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: November 05, 2013 07:44PM

Arno Riewe,

I too was in the same basement kindergarten; and continued on through all grades until graduation in 1952, at Arnold. My parents and I, moved to the southwest side that same year, so I missed the fire at Arnold; and had not learned about it until many years later. I too, would like to know the cause of the fire in 1959; and suspect that someone with access to the Tribune archive may be able to find some of the details.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: ARNO1 ()
Date: November 05, 2013 08:16PM

Dear Nordsider,
Thanks for your prompt reply!
Well Sir, I shall post whatever info I can find (If I find it!)

Incidently, if your interested, go to GOOGLEMAPS and in the area of 637-639 W. Armitage, the 3 story building with the green "peak" and white letters A.OLIMERT...The window just above the doorway with 639 was my perch and bedroom window... so I more or less had a ringside view of this tragic event.
Keep in touch... Sincerly-Arno



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2013 02:00PM by ARNO1.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: November 06, 2013 09:34AM

Arno,

I well remember the 637-639 W. Armitage building; and a surviving memory, of walking past the 637 end, a first floor open window, and a family singing "Happy Birthday . . .".

And also, since you are from Hanover, you may be interested to know that in a 1862 map of the city, Burling street, beginning north of Armitage -- at about where the future Arnold school would be located -- the street was labeled "Munich St."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2013 10:25AM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: shekaago ()
Date: November 07, 2013 03:29PM

Nordsider & Arno,

I found a Tribune article on the 1959 fire at the Arnold School. If you or anyone else wants a copy of the article, just send me a PM and I'll email it to you. In the article, the Fire Commissioner at the time, Robert J. Quinn, stated that the fire was definitely of "incendiary origin."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2013 04:09PM by shekaago.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Dunning1 ()
Date: November 07, 2013 06:08PM

My old grade school is "kinda" closed. I attended St. Priscilla School on Addison Street, and still remember when the church was actually located in the school basement. The "new" church building, on Addison Street, was built while we attended school. After the new church was opened, the basement was converted to additional classrooms and a library. I guess the school closed a few years ago, and was consolidated with a school in Norridge, but the Chicago Public schools rented the building out for the overflow from Bridge School. Another neat memory was the old rectory building, which stood just west of the school on the other side of the parking lot. It was a pretty much standard red brick Chicago bungalow. When the new rectory was opened in about 1964, someone bought the old building and literally moved it down Addison Street. It now stands at the corner of Addison and I believe Octavia, and is somewhat noticeable as the upper part of the building is older red brick while the lower portion is newer yellow brick. There was also a WWII surplus Quonsett Hut located in the parking lot just south of the school and rectory, just as you go down a slight incline in the grade.
Going to a parochial school during that era, the Our Lady of the Angels fire was a huge thing for us. While it caused some safety improvements at our school, it caused another building in the neighborhood to be torn down. On the southeast corner of Addison St. & Narragansett, there are a couple of 1960's apartment buildings. Originally, there was a annex of the school over at Austin & Grace (Grey School?). It was a frame building, and right after the OLA fire, it was closed and torn down. The underlying land is still owned by the board of education, and the buildings are built on leased land.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: shekaago ()
Date: November 07, 2013 07:54PM

Dunning1,

How interesting about St. Priscilla and about the rectory being moved. I didn't go there (went to Locke) but did have friends who attended school there and then they grew up and got married at the church. I remember the Quonset hut! The school that was at Narragansett & Addison was Branch #1 of the O. A, Thorp School which is at Austin & Grace.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: November 08, 2013 08:05AM

shekaago Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nordsider & Arno,
>
> I found a Tribune article on the 1959 fire at the
> Arnold School. If you or anyone else wants a copy
> of the article, just send me a PM and I'll email
> it to you. In the article, the Fire Commissioner
> at the time, Robert J. Quinn, stated that the fire
> was definitely of "incendiary origin."

shekaago,

Thank you for the Tribune article. When I read about the roof in flames, I thought of the south quarter of the top floor, where our gymnasium/assembly hall was, and where members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra once performed for the us kids.

The school was built in 1886, two years after the death of Isaac Newton Arnold, "Lincoln's Friend and Biographer."


Arson is an insane act.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2013 10:34PM by nordsider.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: Paul Petraitis ()
Date: November 15, 2013 12:30PM

These aren't my schools, but the descriptions of the rooms and the desks (we had 48 per room)and those big lon POLES we used to open and shut the windows sure do sound familiar. I (like my mother before me) went to Brenan School on 115th & Eggleston in the Roseland neighborhood. We had a "big" and "little" Kindergarten. I now realize that us baby boomers in our peak years (1947, 49, 51) really CLOGGED the chicago Public school system and that the "little" kindergarten was initially another room "deputized" to handle the overflow. Our big Kindergarten had its own entrance, lockers and bathrooms. A SUITE now that I think about it! I was a kindergartener in 1955 and by 6th grade (1961)we were divvied up into 6A and 6B. There were January and June graduations. The last January graduating class was 1967.My Mom graduated 8th grade at Brenan in 1938. We shared two teachers! For us Protestants our public school was our "parish"!

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: gomba306 ()
Date: November 13, 2014 10:58PM

Hi nordsider,

I too went to Isaac Arnold school. I graduated in 1957. In fact, I lived right next door to Arnold School. I used to hop over our fence and I was in the school yard. I remember going to Waller High School in the summer when they opened their pool and we could swim in it to beat the heat. I also remember going to the store on the corner of Burling and Armitage as they had an ice cream soda fountain in there. I was once thrown out out school for 3 days when Mr. Farrell caught me throwing snowballs at a CTA bus. I used to be on the projection team at Arnold with a classmate named Henry Prevolt. I also spent much of my time in the playground that was across the street from Arnold. I remember we used to walk over to a hot dog stand on Webster ave. but nobody can remember it's name. Can anyone help?
I liked the Burling street neighborhood so much I wrote a book about growing up on the west side of Chicago. It details my days at Arnold and contains pictures of the school,Waller High and the playground that was across the street. If anyone is interested and if Forgotten Chicago allows it, I will let you know how to get the book. By the way did you know Kathy Robinson, Tom Garrity or Mike Kendall?

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: nordsider ()
Date: November 14, 2014 01:51AM

gomba306

I would be interested to read your book; what is the the title, and your name? I knew two Garrity brothers, James and the other brother's name, has now escaped my memory, but it may have been Tom. The brothers uncle, was the well known Chicago personality Vince Garrity.

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Re: Old schools
Posted by: gomba306 ()
Date: November 15, 2014 11:16AM

Hi Tom12ga and ARNO1

I sent this message to norsider. You may be interested.

I too went to Isaac Arnold school. I graduated in 1957. In fact, I lived right next door to Arnold School. I used to hop over our fence and I was in the school yard. I remember going to Waller High School in the summer when they opened their pool and we could swim in it to beat the heat. I also remember going to the store on the corner of Burling and Armitage as they had an ice cream soda fountain in there. I was once thrown out out school for 3 days when Mr. Farrell caught me throwing snowballs at a CTA bus. I used to be on the projection team at Arnold with a classmate named Henry Prevolt. I also spent much of my time in the playground that was across the street from Arnold. I remember we used to walk over to a hot dog stand on Webster ave. but nobody can remember it's name. Can anyone help?
I liked the Burling street neighborhood so much I wrote a book about growing up on the west side of Chicago. It details my days at Arnold and contains pictures of the school,Waller High and the playground that was across the street. If anyone is interested and if Forgotten Chicago allows it, I will let you know how to get the book. By the way did you know Kathy Robinson, Tom Garrity, Mike Kendall or Bob Witt?

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