Cover Story: History lesson
A photo gallery of several vacant Atlanta public schools
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?A.D. Williams Elementary School on the former Bowen Homes housing site has been empty for more than five years. “This building has been an eyesore,” says Donna Stephens, chair of Neighborhood Planning Unit G, which includes the school. “You want it to do something, be something.”
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?According to an Atlanta Public Schools official, the school was designed in the “open classroom” style that was popular during the decade. Students filled large classrooms that were later divided with partition walls. One of several inspirational murals still adorns the walls in the former common areas of the classrooms, a stark contrast to the vandalism that’s taken place.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?The former principal’s office at A.D. Williams Elementary School. Instruction books and training manuals have been left behind, along with other materials.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Vandals and copper thieves have ravaged the school’s interior. This photo shows how, after failing to open the door with a sledgehammer, they instead pounded a hole in the wall to enter the mechanical room and take the valuable metals.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?A utility box in A.D. Williams mechanical room has been stripped bare. Officials estimate that thieves did hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage inside the building to get a return of less then $5,000.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?The shuttered David T. Howard High School, which is not for sale, sits amid houses in vibrant Old Fourth Ward, fenced off and dead aside from the occasional youth soccer game on its grounds. Considering its prime location in a resurgent neighborhood near the Atlanta Beltline, it is potentially one of the system’s most valuable — and historic — pieces of property.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Cold winters, hot summers, and no climate control have helped speed up paint peeling from the walls in Howard Elementary School.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Fourteen-foot ceilings and terrazzo floors bracket the corridors of David T. Howard High School in Old Fourth Ward. Martin Luther King, Jr., H.J Russell, and Vernon Jordan all attended the school.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Not every area of the school suffers from weather damage. The old-school score board high above the basketball court where hoops star and Howard alumnus Walt Frazier is said to have played appears to be in perfect condition. One set of bleachers overlooks the court and stage.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Milton Elementary School sits vacant in Chosewood Park. The two-story building was one of several APS schools built in the 1910s, such as the George W. Adair Elementary school in Adair Park. It was most recently occupied, according to a certificate in the boiler room, in 2008.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?A former mural inside the school remains in an area where a stage once stood. On March 2, APS inked a deal with a production company to take over the 21,357 square-foot building. A dispute between APS and the city over the deed to the building, along with other vacant APS schools, could potentially hold up the sale.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Vandals and thieves have also hit the school’s interior, trashing areas and busting or cutting holes into walls to steel copper.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Jim Williamson, president of the Chosewood Park Neighborhood Association, says the proper redevelopment of Milton Elementary School, which sits a few blocks from the Atlanta Beltline and turns 100 years old this year is key to the community’s economic future.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?An APS official secures the Milton Avenue school. Until a new buyer officially moves in and renovates the facility, the vacant building remains locked up.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?{DIV}?Chris Appleton, co-founder and executive director of WonderRoot, has signed a lease with APS to transform a former high school on Memorial Drive (that turned into a charter school which eventually shut down) into the Center for Arts and Social Change, the arts nonprofit’s new home.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?Appleton says that the area on top of the old boiler room will be transformed into a 2,000 square-foot art gallery. The boiler room itself will become a music venue. A recording studio will be built adjacent to that space.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?Appleton says this first-floor area will be transformed into a restaurant that will be open from morning to night. It will also serve as a gathering place for artists and the community.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?The former Hubert Elementary School’s auditorium will be converted into a performance venue. WonderRoot will leave behind its 4,800-square-foot location and move into the new building that’s more than 10 times its size. The staff size will more than double as well.
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JOEFF DAVIS
?Former classrooms will be renovated, original hardwood floors revealed, and the new institution will have various sized studios that artists and nonprofits can rent for $1.50 a square foot — including utilities, internet, and 24-hour access.
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JOEFF DAVIS
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