This project captures a small slice of the past and present when focusing on the education system within the city of Philadelphia. Recently, 23 schools have closed and Spring Garden School No.1 is now a hollow casting of what could happen to a building when it is no longer a home away from home for students. It is important to take from the past and apply that lesson to the future because education will always be an essential part of our everyday being.
Spring Garden School No.1 sits on 12th and Ogden Streets in the Poplar neighborhood of North Philadelphia. It was built between the years 1927-1928 by Irwin Thornton Catharine. This three-story, three bay brick building in the Moderne-style landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Comments (7)
Philly will never recover its lost greatness when countless properties are allowed to sit vacant, abandoned & trashed. You have to get rid of your "garbage" to merit respect. Philly misses the boat.— jerseyguy242- Wish there was some background on this school - when was it closed and why? Why are there books still in the building? Was there no place where they could have been used when the school closed? Has this property been for sale, and if so, how's that been going?— Clarity
- What a disgrace... Why aren't the people who let this happen held accountable...??? You wait and see what happens to these 23 schools that are closing... Same thing.. Who is gonna buy them.??? I agree with jerseyguy242.. Philly has to clean up its garbage. Such a shame. Phila. is an awesome city, but it will never, ever be a great city if this continues... When you education system is as such, who would wanna move there and raise a family..??? Clean it up already...— Shumee3
- Such a shame but some really nice photography.— roguefiftyone
- I worked on some of these schools, Olney H.S for one. The students were throwing fire extinguishers out the windows at us batteries books... The faculty can't control them anyway. We told the principal , he said not his children. So we left, don't you know they had a riot after we left.... The principal got a broken jaw LOL!!!— Roof dawg
- I have never seen a more melodramatic story in my life. Its an abandoned building, not the end of some dream. Books are not out of reach, every person in the hood seems to have a smart phone where they could read these books, if they want to, which they don't.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
— Knuble 
The school district claims to be broke, but leaves full collections of textbooks behind to rot when it closes a school?
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