Photographs of Old School Buildings
in Concord, New Hampshire
photographs, text, and compilation of links are Copyright 2010 by Ronald B. Standler
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Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Dewey (constructed 1890)
- Rumford (1902)
- Kimball (1906)
- Walker (1910)
- Conant (1927)
Introduction
Concord, NH has four school buildings that are examples of
architecture built between 1890 and 1910. Unfortunately, these old buildings
have a number of disadvantages in modern society:
- difficult to add electrical wiring and Internet cables.
- no thermal insulation in walls, not energy-efficient.
- may contain asbestos insulation.
- may be difficult to upgrade to modern building codes.
- no central ventilation system, would be difficult to cool building in summer.
- not easy to adapt some old buildings to comply with modern regulations
for access by handicapped people. (On the other hand, modifications are
surely less expensive than demolishing an old building and then constructing
a new building.)
For these reasons, some politicians and educational administrators intend
to demolish some of these historic school buildings.
I cringe, because:
- I hate to see these historic buildings disappear.
- I think it is unlikely that the new building will be as solidly
constructed as the old building.
- These old buildings have a character that is lacking in modern buildings.
I remember when I was a high school pupil or undergraduate college student
in the 1960s, climbing worn granite or marble stairs in old buildings made me
realize that I was part of a tradition.
I don't want to get sucked into the controversy over Concord schools and
their building plans. I already have plenty of changes to advocate in
my professional career. This webpage is only concerned with showing photographs
of old school buildings in Concord.
I obtained the dates of construction of each school building from a Dec 2008
webpage
posted by the Concord School District. However, I noticed in other credible
webpages that the year of construction was sometimes different by one year.
Note about my photographs:
To make this webpage load faster,
I have converted the high-quality, 4000 × 3000 pixel
files from my digital camera to medium-quality, lower resolution files
(typically 480 × 360 pixels).
In order to preserve the fidelity of the data,
I have not made any adjustment of exposure or color with
software. My photographs have the date in day/month/year format
stamped by the camera. I took these photographs on 20 Nov 2010
with a Canon SX130 camera.
Dewey School
The Dewey School was constructed in the year 1890 at
38 Liberty Street (between Centre Street and School Street).
Dewey School was closed in the year 2002.
Dewey has a maximum capacity of 178 pupils with modifications built in 1956-58.
View from across Liberty Street with wideangle lens.
View from parking lot next to School Street, with wideangle lens.
Rumford School
The Rumford School was constructed in the year 1902 at
40 Thorndike Street (near South Street).
View from across Thorndike Street, with wideangle lens.
Rumford School is the only one of these five public school buildings to
have the date of construction prominently displayed on the side of the building.
Rumford has a maximum capacity of 367 pupils with modifications built in 1952.
Kimball School
The Kimball School was constructed in the year 1906 at
17 North Spring Street (between Warren and Pleasant Streets).
Kimball was originally a high school, built to replace Parker High School
on School Street. In 1927, Kimball became a middle school. In 1957, Kimball
became an elementary school (grades kindergarten through six).
1996-2004 webpages,
including
history
of Kimball School. The
Concord
Monitor for 18 June 2010 reported on the last day of classes at Kimball,
after 104 years of classes.
Kimball has a maximum capacity of 347 pupils.
View from Spring Street, with wideangle lens.
View from Spring Street, showing front entrance.
There is a tiny front lawn for Kimball School and Spring Street is narrow, so
I could not get far enough away from the School to take a good photograph
of the School.
The Morrill Manual Training School was constructed in the year 1907 at
16 Rumford Street (behind Kimball School).
Concord Historical Society Report on
Morrill
School. The brick building seemed ordinary to me, so I did not photograph
the Morrill School.
Walker School
The Walker School was constructed in the year 1910 at
4 Church Street (between North State Street and North Main Street),
on the north side of Concord, NH.
I cropped the photograph to remove some of the sky and parking lot.
Walker has a maximum capacity of 453 pupils.
Conant School
The Conant School was constructed in the year 1929 at
152 South Street.
Like many modern elementary schools, it is a single-story building.
Conant has a maximum capacity of 578 pupils with
modifications built in 1948, 1961, 1967, 1985, and 1998.
View from front lawn, with wideangle lens. I cropped the photograph to
remove some of the sky and front lawn.
View from front lawn, showing front entrance and cupola.
Notice the two pupils sitting on the front steps, to give a sense of scale.
this document is at http://www.rbs0.com/schools.htm
first posted 19 Dec 2010
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