A Return to Enright Middle

On the same day that Chris, Tunajive, and Inubis and I had visited St. Mary's Infirmary, we also made a trip out to Enright Middle School. None of the other guys had seen the place, and I really wanted to return during the day so I could have a little more freedom with taking pictures.

Since my last post on Enright, I have learned that I was incorrect in my belieft that William B. Ittner designed Enright Middle. I used www.eco-absence.org to help me find the actual architect: a firm called Mauran, Russell & Garden. Also, as you can see from this picture, Enright Middle School was not always known as such. It has been known at different times as Smith Academy & Manual Training School, Blewett Junior High School, Harris Teacher's College, and Enright Classical Junior Academy.

The first thing that I noticed when we attempted to enter the building was that the entrance I had used before wouldn't work. It had involved climbing through a high window onto shelves in a storage room. Inubis was the first to try. "Where am I supposed to go?" "Just climb into the room on the shelves," I said. "What shelves?" So, we ended up dropping the 10 feet or so into the storage room. Except for Chris, who realized that the outside door on the outside wall was open. Damn him and his "being smart!" It was obvious right away why the shelves were no longer there: Renovation had begun on the school. All of the trash and rubble that used to be in this area was gone! The shop rooms, which used to still have all the old work tables, were completely empty. The broken mirrors and sinks in the restrooms had also been cleaned up. I had one of those bittersweet moments that an explorer experiences when they realize that a place they love is being saved, but will soon be off limits to them. I was glad that the other guys were getting a chance to see the school before it was completely closed off.

I may have spoken too soon. From the shop and art areas in the back, there is one hallway that leads to the rest of the school's interior. It was securely chained. Perhaps they wouldn't get to see the school after all. We wandered around the outside of the building in the back and found our way into the boiler room. Never having been in a school's boiler room before, I was amazed at the huge air ducts that left the boilers and headed into the school. They were so large that we were able to walk around on them with little difficulty.

It was then that someone noticed our possible entrance to the school. There was a utility tunnel that left the boiler room at it's lowest point. Success! We ended up being right, as the tunnel led to another electrical room in the school. It required a pretty tight squeeze between some pipes, but we weren't going to let that stop us.

Inside the school, it was again clear the amount of work that was being done on the building. Much of the crumbling material on the floors had been removed, and there were instructions written everywhere with spray paint like "demo this wall" and a line. Inubis found a can of the spray paint, and we all commented that it would be pretty funny to instruct them to demolish some additional walls, just to really confuse everyone, but we're not that evil! We also saw a few high tech looking machines apparently used for cleaning up the asbestos. The most interesting aspect of the renovation was one of the fourth floor gymnasiums: It was completely covered with plastic on every wall, like some kind of clean room in case of radiation spill or something.

Apparently, the plan for Enright is for it to be made into apartments, as well as 24 luxury houses being built on the large field in front of the school. As always, I am glad this historic and beautiful building is being used in some way, and I guess there are worse things that apartments and luxury houses. Hopefully, it will help to revitalize an area of the city that seems to really need it.

Does anyone else think that this sign is as funny as I do?!