School Daze: Part I

(Click for Part II)

These photos have been sitting in Lightroom for a long time. I was here in mid-summer, so…about four months! This was a solo-explore not too far from home. Afterwards, edits had to wait. I was just too busy.

Speaking of busy, I just finished my weddings for the year, which leaves me with nights and weekends off for the first time since April! I got a little behind after a short work trip to LA last month, but I caught up. I have decided to book slightly less in ’16 so I don’t stretch myself quite so thin again.

I decided to split this set up because it’s a long one. I’ve been in a stereotypical tortured artist mood of hating all my personal work recently, so maybe getting back to posting some of it will help. I dunno. I dunno!

Though abandoned since the late 80s, this pretty little high school is undergoing various states of preservation as a community center. Hurray! I swear some rooms on the ground level are even being used as shops for local businesses, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what is going on. Someone enlighten me.

I headed for the basement first. There was decent light down here, so shooting wasn’t much of a challenge. There’s a lot down here, including the school’s sunken gym, complete with basketball court and overhead running track. It’s really beautiful. I took some panoramas down here and got so covered in dust, I had a cloud coming off of me like Pig Pen.

After a large chunk of time in the gym, I wandered around the rest of the basement. There was a cool, dirty old storage space full of shelves and tools with writing on the walls. It looked like stats from school sports. There were some old report cards in the cabinets that were kinda neat. Someone I spoke to with knowledge of the town’s history said the room was once used as a small morgue, way back, which apparently wasn’t uncommon in old schools. It was interesting.

I’m hoping to track down a couple sets of vintage lockers like this for the house. Recently Matt and I got hold of a gigantic steel fire door, a generous gift from relatives who own the local abandoned-warehouse-turned-art-gallery/studios. It’s going in the dining room. I’m like a magpie for industrial garbage.

I then wandered in to an open room with three rows of chairs arranged audience-style in front of a desk. On the desk, religious paraphernalia and quotes of scripture. A table covered in old bottles of water and holiday cookie tins. NO GOD NO PEACE and ONE DAY AT A TIME written in blocky letters on the chalkboard. I didn’t need Scooby and Shaggy to figure out where I was.

I’ve done some research, but I can find no indication that this is a current meeting place. I really don’t know how long it’s been. Regardless, I find meeting in the dark, dingy basement of an abandoned high school a depressing testament to the plight of addiction recovery. My heart hurt just being here, so I moved on.

Another room down here had these pretty yellow shelves. Someone told me they once held colorful (I hope I don’t mess this up) hats made from a local craftswoman who had passed within the year. Again. I have no clue how or why she set up shop in the basement of an abandoned school. I’m failing you big-time.

Also in the basement is the school’s in-ground pool. The angles of the doors, paired with the weird color cast coming in through the window, gives me some super-surreal, almost de Chirico vibes.

From the pool, I went straight up to the top floor. There’s a lot of great stuff on the ground floor, and I saved that for last. On the top floor were a few classrooms, some empty rooms that I think are being rebuilt, and a few bathrooms.

Don’t write on the “chaulk” boards. Chaulk. Lemme avert my editor eyes.

I loved this door.

This room had to be some kind of office for a school authority. Check out that Apple sticker. There were dozens of pigeons nesting in the ceiling, and they made an absolute mess out of the place. The floor was spongy from their droppings, feathers were in the air, broken eggshells (and ehhh…bones) crunched underfoot. I don’t like pigeons in old buildings. They make a lot of creepy noises and they’re filthy.

That’s it for the first part of my tour here. Next time I’ll take you into the iconic theater and one of the most popular abandoned classrooms ever photographed. ‘Til then.