Almost every day, I find myself driving by John Marshall High School. I never tire of looking at it, the structure is so stately and beautiful at the same time. Am I in the minority or do others feel this structure should be saved? Tom Ott of the PD reports today about Cleveland City schools rebuilding or revamping plans: can Max Hayes and a new west side high school cohabitate? If so, they will both have the same location. The School System did not say they were tearing Marshall down, but it IS one of the options.
There will be forums around the City, so everyone can learn about the plans. Here are the details:
Forums are scheduled Tuesday at Riverside School, 14601 Montrose Ave.; Wednesday at James F. Rhodes High School, 5100 Biddulph Ave.; Thursday at John Adams High School, 3817 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive; and Thursday, May 29, at A.J. Rickoff School, 3500 East 147th St…. All the forums will be from 6 to 8 p.m.
One more interesting tidbit, then you can read the entire article: predictions about school populations held up on the east side (less students) but the west side stayed pretty stable in population. Here is the Tom Ott blog post in the PD. Peace Out - 3C
12 responses so far ↓
1 derek arnold // May 18, 2008 at 8:37 pm
They should remodel…look at the job they did to my alma mater, John Hay High School.
derek arnold’s last blog post..The 2008 Democratic Primary in 7.5 minutes?
2 lmshane // May 19, 2008 at 5:33 am
John Marshall should get remodeled, just as DA says. Will it get remodeled?? Not if the current vipers in this city get their way…
3 Derek Arnold // May 19, 2008 at 9:22 am
I have spent some time recently going through Canton and they did in a lot of their old schools and just rebuilt. Kind of sad, really.
Sometimes, I think that this school rebuilding thing is just a pork barrel for the construction industry…but that’s just me.
What good is a new school with high student to teacher ratios.
Instead of considering tearing down John Marshall, they should tear down the horrible modern schools (did they forget how to build schools after 1950?) such as Joseph Gallagher and H. Barbara Booker Montessori (which was Gordon Elementary when I went there — I am also an alum of the former Hicks Montessori School — which got torn down to make way for parking at the West Side Market)
Derek Arnold’s last blog post..The 2008 Democratic Primary in 7.5 minutes?
4 Carole Cohen // May 19, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hi Derek, Hi LM, and I’m glad to see I’m not alone in this worry. Derek, boy do you hit it on the head. The PD article talked about the need for smaller class sizes but depending on how the const/rebuilds/rehabbing projects play out it could be just as you say; a pretty face but still over crowded. Wonder how well attended the forums will be?
5 lmcshane // May 19, 2008 at 11:14 am
Go through this list–
http://www.cmsdnet.net/NewSchools/segment_schools.htm
DA writes: Sometimes, I think that this school rebuilding thing is just a pork barrel for the construction industry…but that’s just me.
No, Derek–it’s not just you. Despite landmark status CMSD is going to go after these beautiful schools like John Marshall. My only hope would be that the PD exposes the patronage link, before we lose more of our architectural heritage and saddle students with crap architecture.
6 lmcshane // May 19, 2008 at 11:16 am
Carole, I am going to the Riverside meeting tomorrow night.
7 Carole Cohen // May 19, 2008 at 11:25 am
lmcshane, I think an email from all three of us to the PD reporter is in order
8 Oengus // May 19, 2008 at 7:52 pm
John Marshall will never be demolished, are you looking for something to worry about?
I was on the cities web site the other day and reading about a shortage of 9-12 seats. I thought that is what you get for closing West Technical.
Lincoln West is overcrowded, and they are considering shifting some students to Marshall.
I believe they could reopen Jefferson Junior High and build around it; they could build a central high school around it, a campus. It could be a trade school and a traditional high school. It could also be a recreational center.
Done jointly with RTA, which could create a red line loop.
What is interesting about that area is that the entire street grids traversed with courts. The streets converted to transit have courts to access the individual parcels. Streets converted to rail and having access though courts from the back for automobiles.
Consolidated educational and recreational campus, which would be accessible by rail.
This done with a North/ South connector bridge between Lorain and Clark would serve automobiles and the rail line. The rail would cross Clark run trough the Campus and then south on existing roads to just North of Denison and loop back.
This type of complex centrally located and serviced by rail, would eliminate the need for Lincoln West High, Zone, Clark and Cudell recreation centers as well as Max Hayes High School.
Moving homes to surrounding vacant lots, if they are structurally sound and or architecturally significant could clear the land. The area has many Victorian Bungalows. The road pattern around the campus changed, creating green space, and sports fields. The complex should be comparable to St. Ignatius campus.
This is capital improvement, a large-scale project that creates jobs. Then results in significantly lower operating cost of government. It also offer transit on development and redevelopment of abandoned sites.
9 Carole Cohen // May 19, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Oengus, campus school layouts, to me, foster community development, I so agree with you. Max Hayes has a full load of students so a trade school of their own makes sense, I don’t see any reason why these two schools couldn’t share a campus. I also think another cool rec center on the order of Gunning is a great idea. Link it all to the rails and then the older students can even take it to school. From your mouth to CMSD ears.
As for worrying, well, they mentioned it as a possibility and my anxiety kicked right in lol. I have a fifty-fifty chance of being able to go to the mtg at Riverside tomorrow, I hope so. We can get a report from LM either way.
10 lmshane // May 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm
From the horse’s mouth tonight–the proposal is to tear down John Marshall and move Max Hayes to West 65th…I didn’t stick around for an explanation of what will happen to Max Hayes property, but it is earmarked to sell to a developer. Afterall, we are talking views of the lake.
11 Carole Cohen // May 20, 2008 at 9:11 pm
That makes me sad and angry. I hope you do a post about it! I didn’t finish working in time to go. There has to be a way to not have this happen. I’m going to email the JM Alumni assn and see what they plan on doing for one thing.
12 Carole Cohen // May 26, 2008 at 4:26 pm
LM, I received an email back from a JM alum, and she said she will forward the issue/my email to others in the organization. She also said she was going to one of the other town mtgs.
I tried to do this on REAL NEO but the site won’t let me comment today!
Leave a Comment