Lincoln - West HS

 We made an impromptu stop at Lincoln - West High School, 3202 West 30th Street, on Saturday afternoon. This school opened in the fall of 1970, I still remember coming to the open house with my grandmother. A couple years later I had the misfortune to attend this school, only two years old and already coming apart. A privately run business would have been shut down by the fire department for all the burned out exit signs, missing fire extinguishers and fire hoses, not to mention the leaking pool or the HVAC problems, but government institutions are exempt from the laws they expect others to follow. This is also the place where, after only five days, I questioned my guidance counselor, Mr. Lewis, about the abrupt change in my schedule, and I was told, not to worry, I was too stupid to go to college. Actually, the reality is more likely the opposite, this school was aimed at those who's been in the public school system from grade one,  making the classes quite boring, literally going over things I'd read years earlier. My grandmother taught me to read when I was five, and I'd been reading books since then, and these classes were pablum. I remember the American History final, where the only question was to list the presidents, and there weren't as many back then. Seriously, what a joke. Compared to Central Catholic where I'd gone a year earlier. this place was a big step backwards. There were a couple good teachers, John Choice and Helen Malloy were two of the best but they were the exceptions. Fortunately I was able to transfer out of this hellhole and into a more suitable school a couple years later. I went on to stage a number of benefit concerts for them, but I vote NO on every school levy.

Sure feel bad for the people that have to look at this eyesore on a daily basis. They should really try and cut the grass and clean up the trash a little more often.

This is the amusing part. I started on West 30th, circling the building, clicking as I went, I talked to the security guy in the SUV on the 30th Street side about the weather, went on my way, clicking down the West 31st Street side, when at the end this guy, starts yelling at me, out the window, saying I'm not allowed to take photographs of the building, from a public sidewalk. I told him that the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment gives me the right, and sort of shut up. I wouldn't have bothered to take a photo of this SUV if he hadn't started talking stupid. No secret where he went to school.