Where We Went To School

One thing Burbank is not known for (and for good reason) is its architecture. That said, two Burbank grade schools are architectural stand-outs: Tobin (no longer among us) and Luther Burbank (still among the living -- the building, that is, not the person). And I have to admit that I didn't appreciate either of these when I was a kid, but click on each one to englarge them and take a close look. They're truly impressive buildings, and they put the other abominations (especially the three schools I attended) here to shame!

So, tell me where you went to school. And what do you remember about the school itself? One thing I remember was showing up before the start of the school year to see whose homeroom I would be in; the lists were always posted on the front door. An event! (Again, this was the '70s, and we didn't have a whole hell of a lot to occupy our time back then.)



Tobin (above). (An anonymous reader of the blog sent a bunch of photos of Tobin to me, including many from when Tobin was torn down, which I'll post soon.) This photo looks like Tobin after a nuclear holocaust. Look at the barren ground, and notice how hard the flag is flapping. Haunting. But a great-looking building nevertheless.


Luther Burbank (above). (This photo is courtesy of Sherry Cofer-Logan.) Enlarge this one, and take a close look at it. This is in Burbank? Of course, I saw it all the time, but why was I so oblivious to it as a kid?


St. Albert's (above). I've never been inside St. Albert's. (For church, my family attended St. Fabian's, so my experience of St. Albert's was limited to their carnival). What's a shopping cart doing locked to the hand-rail?


Fry (above). For my money, this is the ugliest school in the district. I attended Fry from 1973-74 for third and fourth grades. I wrote my first piece of creative writing here, a play about a fat superhero who slips inside of a phone booth to change into his costume and gets stuck. And here I am, thirty-four years later, still thinking up ridiculous ideas. Thank you, Fry.



Byrd (above). I suppose if you use your imagination, you can see some Frank Lloyd Wright influences...maybe? (I know, I know, I'm stretching here, but it's not as bad as Fry or the others below.)


And now we come to two schools that are more or less interchangeable: McCord (above) and Kennedy (below). Try to find the differences. Can you? I have to say, though, that these are some sad-looking schools.


Kennedy (above). I attended Kennedy from 1975-79, from fifth through eighth grade. I spent sixth grade in the mobile units out back. Our teacher (let's call him Mr. L.) was a compulsive smoker, and so he would sometimes go into the bathroom and light one up on the sly. The problem was that smoke would come rolling out of the vents. Another time, after he'd driven through a bad snow storm to get to work, he sat in front of the class and told us that he needed a cigarette, and he didn't care if we reported him; and then he pulled out a pack, lit a cigarette, and smoked it in front of us in silence. Ah...the seventies!


Maddock (above). Maddock was my first grade school in Burbank: 1971-72, for first and second grade. It looks a little bit like a factory with that smoke stack popping up out of the roof. Believe it or not, I attended two other schools before Maddock -- one in Argo and one (briefly) in Houston, Texas. Maddock was the third school I attended for first grade; I had fallen so far behind that a girl in my first-grade class at Maddock offered to do all my homework for me. And guess what? I let her. (I'm still in her debt!)