Central High School pt. 3 (The James and Burns buildings)

The James building.

You can find the first post about Central High School's Classical building here and the second post about the Practical Arts building here.

By the late 50s, Central high school was bulging at the seams with students again, riding the wave of the post-war baby boom. In 1960, the city made a shocking decision to build an entirely new school and Memorial High School was born on Manchester's south side among the numerous post-war style, single family homes behind South Willow St. In a big-picture way, it's important to recognize that this was when Manchester's commerce began seeping from downtown to South Willow St. changing the a major dynamic of life in the city.

There was a question of which Central students would remain and which would move to the new high school. The school board drew a line from Auburn that followed the east-bound rail line down to Valley St. and divided the east half of the city. The line has since represented the unofficial boundary between the inner city and the southern side of Manchester.

A student zoning map for Central, West and Memorial high schools.

Despite Memorial's construction, Central was still suffering from overcrowding and maintenance issues. A negative report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 1963 cited a laundry list of complaints about the school, mainly that the buildings were "ancient" with antiquated facilities and the school relied almost completely on a homegrown faculty and staff. The report was a catalyst for much debate and the city argued whether or not to build an entirely new school. A piece of land was prospected in the Wellington Road area for a large high school but in the end the city decided to make piecemeal with the addition of the James building.

The intersection at Concord and Ash street was closed off and the James building, along with grass courtyard, were built over the roads. Despite the new building and yard, students and faculty would often arrive in the morning to find tire tracks stretching the length of the where Concord street had been.

A satellite view of Central High School via Google Maps. The red path highlight where Concord and Ash streets used to intersect prior to the James building's construction. 

The James building presents a skeletal and utilitarian look, a style called "International" that was popular between the 40s and 80s. It was connected to the Classical building by a series of walkways and housed a completely new oil-fired steam heating system. Several other renovations took place, including the roofing over of the ruined observatory and many of the school's facilities were shuffled around. It wasn't until the 80s that Central would replace the grass courtyard with concrete, a decision I'm usually sad to see, but in this case praise, as it links the school together nicely.

Almost 40 years later, stemming a rising enrollment again, the Burns building (named after William Burns, a principal of Central for 25 years and the author of the text I've pulling most of this research from) was built along the East end of the school, connecting at the Classical and James building junction. The project cost $30 million and was coupled with the construction of an underground parking garage. The facade of the Burns building embodies a mish-mash futurist and international style architecture.

The Burns building built in 2003.

Looking from one building to the other, you can trace a lengthy segment of Manchester's history and the zeitgeists of the times. The Classical building was built in a time of economic prosperity and the city needed a school it could be proud of, the result was a truly unique looking building of several combined styles. The Practical Arts building straddled the modern era with its bland brick and flat design, while still clinging to post-revolutionary America's ancient Greek love affair with its neo-classical columns. The James building is a true product of more latter-day city government attitudes of get'er done cheap and quick. And the Burns building with its alien, shiny stainless-steel facade yells that the city is looking to the future again with a certain sense of pride, ready align itself with the children's and community's best interests.

It would be wonderful to see a drafting teacher at Central teach a rigorous course in architecture, giving students pattern books to draw from and simple buildings to copy into 45 degree angle sketches. On the Monday dawning the last fortnight of school, the students would arrive at their drafting classroom to find all of their slanted, drawing desks missing. The teacher would walk them out of the school, on a warm spring day, into the sunny court yard. There the desks would sit. "Pick a building. You have two weeks to measure it and draw it. This is your final and it counts for 20% of your grade," the instructor would say.

Sadly, the Manchester school system no longer teaches drafting.

Special thanks to Mike Hennessy, a history teacher at Central High School, who lent me the William Burns text, "Sesquicentennial History: Manchester High School - Central 1846-1996" and the Manchester Historical Association's help in answering my questions.

Central High School pt. 2 (The Practical Arts building)

Note: The post originally featured a picture of Ste. Marie's School captioned as Manchester West High. This has been corrected.

You can find the first post about Central High School here.

In 1922, the opening of the Practical Arts building coincided with the opening of Manchester High School West (or West High) on the other side of the river, giving the mainly French Canadian population, or "Westies," a school closer to home, without having kids schlep across a bridge every day. With this development, the schools earned their current names. Both West and the Practical Arts building were built in the same Federalist styles and bear striking similarities to one another. You have to wonder if the city used the same firm or contractor for the buildings. Perhaps, half off the second building?

Manchester West High School (Left via Meridian Construction) and Central High School's Practical Arts
building (Right).

The PA building stood across from the Classical building on Concord street and was connected by a 300 ft tunnel underneath the street to keep students from walking through traffic or inclement weather on a daily basis. The tunnel also carried steam heating pipes to the new building. It should also be noted that, no, Freshmen do not have to pay to use it. The building contained many modern improvements but proved to be "increasingly less satisfactory as the years passed." In Burns' text, "Sesquicentennial History: Manchester High School - Central 1846-1996," he does not go into detail about the structural problems the PA building had but mentions the problems were compounded when maintenance responsibilities were handed over exclusively to the school district, like when an apartment building's handy-man is moved off site.

Even though the school had its first gymnasium, electricity and science/shop-geared classrooms, the centerpiece of the PA was the auditorium. Accessible from all three levels, it could seat 1500 people and before the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth was built, sported the best acoustic quality in the state. The auditorium also contained a mid-stage trapdoor, dressing rooms, electric lighting, recessed orchestra pit and projection booth equipped with a Simplex projector to display "flickers" or silent movies. I'm working on getting a photo of the auditorium as it is often lauded as beautiful.

With the opening of the PA building, the school bolstered a much more complex and comprehensive curriculum and co-curriculum. Vocational training classes were being supported and added every year to educate children that were not on a set collegiate path. Local, political and tax-weary critics accused the school of trying to be all things to everyone. When I read this I couldn't help but think of this quote from the same interview with Lebbeus Woods, futurist architect, that I referenced in the first post about the school:

As I wrote some years back, architecture is a political act, by nature. It has to do with the relationships between people and how they decide to change their conditions of living. And architecture is a prime instrument of making that change – because it has to do with building the environment they live in, and the relationships that exist in that environment.

Manchester, along with the rest of the country, was moving into the modern era and the school system paralleled itself with that, knowing every child wasn't college bound but needed education. The PA building and the Corey Needle buildings (a retired needle factory that the city leased and equipped with six shops) were major factors in allowing kids to study vocational skills. In 1924, Dr. Louis P. Benezet, arrived as the school system's most progressive and "erudite" superintendant. Benezet denounced much of the classical curriculum that colleges still held high and felt —with an egalitarian attitude— that it was the schools' mission to attract all manner of students and hold their interests in education. Benezet is often cited as instrumental in the Manchester schools providing a wider variety of subjects and activities. In a round-about way, he protected and rationalized the PA and Corey buildings' purpose to the public, besides the far more obvious reason of stemming a rising tide in student enrollment.

The Corey Building —cited as a "fire trap" by the fire department— would later be decommissioned in 1959 in lieu of a new Industrial Arts building behind the PA building.

Corey’s Needle Works Concord Street between Nashua and Maple Streets, looking slightly north west. It later became Parochial Arts High School Manual Training Building. (1899)

When the Great Depression hit in the 30s, Central seemed to serve as more than just a school, but the best part of many students' day, a shelter away from the turbulent world at home. For some, it was their only chance to receive food and heat. In "Sesquicentennial History: Manchester High School - Central 1846-1996"  William Burns notes that student morale seemed to be at an all-time high between the 30s and 50s and remember Central with a level of fondness that has not been seen since.

By the sixties, the school would begin to bloat with classrooms stacked deep with students and two new buildings would be birthed in contention. The final post later this week.

Group portrait of Central High School Graduation Class, 1934.

A confluence of education, history and architecture

Central High School is a weird, cultural hub of Manchester, a sort of century long confluence of education, politics, history and architecture all pooling together in the center of the city. The school, once a handful of students crammed onto the second floor of an old primary school building in the 19th century, now houses 2,400 students from 60 different countries, speaking 30 different languages, in the inner city. When approaching from the Beech street side of the school, you can sense the immediate cross-section of time via the four different types of architecture the school sports.

Central High School's Classical building.

The politically contentious Practical Arts building.

In an entertaining interview with the futurist architect, Lebbeus Woods, a great quote came from the interviewer, Geoff Manaugh of BLDG BLOG that I feel encapsulates everything about why we build schools, whether we know it or not:

"There’s also the incredibly interesting possibility that a building project, once complete, will actually change the society that built it. It’s the idea that a building – a work of architecture – could directly catalyze a transformation, so that the society that finishes building something is not the same society that set out to build it in the first place. The building changes them."

Manchester made serious efforts throughout the latter half of the 19th century to build as many schools as possible and strongly encouraged enrollment and attendance. It is also worth noting that Manchester was increasingly concerned about children skipping school in the 1800s. Where as today, many worry about their spawn getting into mischief on the streets of the city, the parents and teachers of Victorian- era Manchester were more concerned with their kids being lured into the exploitative and dangerous work of the Amoskeag Mills for a few shiny cents. The city made several pushes to open more schools and to educate kids as long as possible before many would succumb to their family's financial burdens and go to work.

View of the Old High School, Beech Street, between Lowell and Concord Streets. A three story building with mansard roof, Romanesque style arched windows with elaborate window crowns, and two side pediment porticos.

When Central was just called "Manchester High School," the iconic yellow brick building standing on the corner of Beech and Bridge was not the first iteration of Manchester's high school but is its third. The first high school building stands on Lowell St in Manchester and is currently owned by the Manchester Institute of Art (the subject of a future post) and the second iteration of the school (illustrated above) was built on the same lot as Central's current "classical building."

View of the New High School Building, Beech Street, between Lowell and Concord Streets. Also known as Manchester Central High School; and Manchester High School Classical Building. A four story building with hipped roof, dormers, an unnamed street is seen on the left. Built on the site of the Old High School.

The classical building began construction in 1895 and opened in the fall of 1897, its architecture an attractive hybrid of Second Empire and Federal styles (please correct me if I'm wrong). It showcased the latest thinking in design with three floors, a large basement with coal heating, a massive attic and copper slated roof complete with drainage pipes. The school still didn't have indoor sanitation but had running cold water. The best part of the design was something removed from the building later (quoting at length from "Sesquicentennial History: Manchester High School - Central 1846-1996" by Principal William Burns):

"At the pinnacle of the roof was an astronomical dome which had a vertical opening for the viewing of the heavens with the school's telescope. The cover could be rotated manually to follow a celestial object's path. An exterior walk surrounded the dome from which there was a fine view of the surrounding city and countryside. A square-shaped classroom was built directly beneath the dome."

I remember several years back when Bedford, NH was in a political grid lock of whether or not to build a high school, some of the parents of the town had requested an observatory or planetarium to be built within the new school. Many guffawed at such a seemingly lavish request, including myself. School- owned observatories were something for private schools with their gates, uniforms and gracious alumnae donations, but here in the late 19th century, a public school had an observatory.

Another intriguing, and maybe depressing, aspect of the Manchester High School design in contrast with latter day school construction, was the thinking that school houses needed plenty of light, large windows and good air circulation- a far cry from the stunted safety windows that inhabit more modern day school.

"There had been much concern shown about student health for many, many years. Having students cooped up in small rooms with bad lighting, uneven heat and poor ventilation coupled with little or no physical movement for hour on end created many a heated argument and fostered any number of learned dissertations about student health."

Small pox, tuberculosis and cholera had swept through the country the century before and air circulation was a reason for a lot of concern in fighting contagions. The school was built with a "maze of air ducts" and a mechanical ventilation system in the basement that replaced the entire school's air within minutes. Trucks loaded with coal would arrive weekly to feed the steam boilers in the winter, which were the cause of many burns over the years.

Group portrait of fourteen unidentified Manchester High School Teachers, ten women and four men. (1905)

With Manchester living through an economical golden era straddling the 19th and 20th century, Manchester High School's student population would continue to bloat, on a mission to make every graduate college eligible. Often times, Manchester grads would hop on trains from their respective college to visit their old high school haunt and recruit students. It wouldn't be until 1922 when Manchester High School West opened its doors across the river, that Manchester High would earn its new moniker, "Central." Alongside West's opening, Central opened a new building that would become hotly contested that same fall.

More to come.