Friday, May 21, 2010

Cleveland High School

For some reason, I received in the mail yesterday the alumni magazine of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. My wife got her M.A. in history there, but the magazine was addressed to me.

In any case, it has an interesting piece about Dan Younger, an art professor at UMSL who has published a book of photographs of Cleveland High School, his alma mater.

"Cleveland looks great from the outside," Younger says. "It's just kind of this funny abandoned thing. You hate to think of it as a metaphor for the city, but it's just another formerly great thing that's been abandoned."

You can look at the entire book (and buy it, too, if you want) at this link.

The photos are a fascinating look inside a majestic piece of St. Louis educational architecture, located at S. Grand and Osceola, a building whose future, like that of so much of that architecture, is unclear.

1 comment:

samizdat said...

Well, Cleveland has indeed been abandoned, but I find it rather insulting to read that he finds it metaphorically similar to the "abandonment" of the City. I remain, as do others, and we are, individually and collectively, doing our part to ensure that the possibility of future deterioration is reduced. I get his point, but it was a rather inelegant and inaccurate attempt at metaphor.