Saturday, May 22, 2010
To the Party in the Hall last night, a fund raiser and a preview of the renovations/new wing of City Honors. 
Just driving by the site for the past two years was enough to see that this was going to be an ambitious project, but I had no way of knowing just how grand the scope of it really was until we saw what was going on inside.
The pool and the gym are exciting, of course, and there are all the usual high tech bells and whistles: projection screens and whiteboards and the like.
They've opened up a lot of space, but what I liked best was that they used the old wood and the old fixtures, incorporating them into the renovation. 
There's a sense in which this monument seems excessive-- the school is a palace in the midst of a poor neighborhood in a poor city. 
On the other hand, the reason people give for moving out of the city is that the schools are better in the burbs. Whether that's true or not-- City Honors does have a national reputation, after all-- it is certainly true that the physical plant, attractive as it was, was also outmoded and worn.
This isn't the only school renovation in the city, but it is far and away the most elaborate. It is, I think, the most elaborate high school I've ever seen.// posted by Bill @ 9:09 AM 
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