dallashistory

Fight to Save High School Not Over Yet
Despite DISD vote, alumni of Adamson take case to city
By Josh Hixson
Staff Writer
Quote:
The Adamson High School alumni group’s fight to save their decades-old alma mater is starting to look a lot like a lost cause.
Last month, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees voted to oppose the alumni group’s proposal to give the school historic landmark status. On the surface, the board’s vote appears to be the death knell for the alumni group’s fight.

However, the board’s vote can’t stop the group from seeking and obtaining landmark status from the city’s Landmark Commission. If the Landmark Commission’s recommendation were then passed by the City Plan Commission, the City Council would be left to decide between saving the historic building or siding with the school board and allowing it to be demolished.

DISD already plans to build a new Adamson High School across the street with funds from the most recent bond program; being forced to keep the old building intact would seriously undermine the school board’s authority.

Glen Straus knows that the alumni group’s odds aren’t good, but he says all they need is a fighting chance.
“I’d say our chances are 50-50. No better than 50-50,” the 1959 graduate of Adamson said. “We will win almost assuredly in front of the Landmark Commission ... They are all pro-building preservation people. Then it moves up to planning and zoning.”
Straus said the alumni group had a meeting last week with an unnamed city plan commission member who indicated the commission would likely pass their bid for landmark status.

“He says that there will be two or three that vote against us, but the rest will vote for us,” Straus said.
City Councilwoman Delia Jasso, whose district contains Adamson, said she supported the school board’s decision, but she declined to indicate which way she would vote if the option to give the building landmark status came before the council.

“[The school board] wanted to take advantage of the low rates on labor and materials right now. Landmark status could drag all the way up to two years,” Jasso said. “They didn’t have the two years to spend, and I understand that. So, for them it was really a business decision. ... However, my hope would have been that we could have preserved parts of it and made the rest what the parents and children wanted.”

Straus said the Landmark Commission could meet as early as this month to decide the building’s fate.
E-mail josh.hixson@peoplenewspapers.com
End quote.

Yeah. I went there during the late 1950s. Some of the best years of my life. The great thing about the school, for me at least, was the teachers, all of which have since died or left. We didn't have a great football team when I was there, but we were strong academically. The building was pretty sad. I think they added air conditioning after I left, but the architecture was nothing special. Lots of good memories, but it's the people I will miss, more so than the building.

I had several friends who attended Adamson including one girl who transferred to and was a member of the first class at SOC. AND my next door neighbors from ninth grade was a family that moved from Oak Cliff. the Howells, including a son the same year in school as I, Richard, and his younger sister Gail. Richard was a two way starter on the HP football team. Their father was a DC who kept his practice in Oak Cliff. I think Richard went to Boude Storey and would have attended Adamsom. He was a cancer victim several years ago.

I've said most all of the above before. I repeat it now as a lead to several questions. I have to say that if I ever saw the school I have forgotten it. But is there any chance of converting the original OC / Adamson building to apartments or condos? I think that has been done with some Atlanta school buildings when enrollment dropped and schools closed.

And a differe4nt topic really. I've seen several who post on this board and the "old" board mention they attended Boude Storey. Never Storey alone. Always Boude Storey. Why is everyone at such pains to use the full name? I have always heard other DISD junior HS referred to as Long or Franklin or Greiner and so on. That was true fifty years ago and seems true today. Was (is?) there another schoool named Storey or Story in the DISD?

I have no idea why some schools are only the last name and others are two names but there are others in Dallas I can think of. One is Jefferson Davis ( Jeff Davis ) which I attended. It has been renamed and is now Barbara Jordan, another two name school. Then there's Lida Hooe Grade School. That one might be self explanatory in todays usage of a similar sounding word, but its always been a two name school.

As I understand it, the reason that DISD wants to raze it is because the building has serious, ongoing, foundation problems that cannot be easily remedied.
Whoever uses it, for whatever purpose, would have to stabilize the structure first. It's just too expensive for the district to do so.
They did offer to rebuild the front of the new building to look like the original, at considerable added expense, but the alumni group didn't like that.

The alumni group only has to look to Crozier Tech to see what is the future of Adamson as a Landmark structure.
Paul

WayneP wrote:
Then there's Lida Hooe Grade School. That one might be self explanatory in today's usage of a similar sounding word, but its always been a two name school.
That cracked me up!

Have you ever noticed that in Dallas no one refers to
Adams, Jefferson or Wilson high schools? It's always Bryan Adams or BA, Thomas Jefferson or TJ and Woodrow Wilson or just Woodrow.
I attended L O Donald grade school and not Donald grade school.
Just local traditions I guess.

Hmm - I attended one Elementary School (in Texas City) that was a two-named: Franz Kohfeldt. Everybody called it "Kohfeldt". and went to Levi Fry Junior High, and it was usuallyc alled "Levi Fry", instead of just Fry. The other Junior High in town (Texas City still) was Blocker, and it may have had a first name as I'm pretty sure it was named for somebody - but nobody ever called it anything but "Blocker".