Kenilworth centennial

My name and graduation date are etched in one of these bricks, which were installed to mark the 80th anniversary of my alma mater. I was honored to be one of the speakers. As for the bricks, they looked poorly carved so you might have to look hard to find those of us who paid to have our names on them. But the important thing is that Kenilworth survives, thrives, and this year celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Kenilworth was the grandest of several handsome elementary schools completed in that era, including Monroe, Grace Court, and Booker T. Washington. It was in the neighborhood that initially had the same name, where Phoenix's elite moved. Now it's the Roosevelt and F.Q. Story historic districts. But that, and the ill-considered Papago Freeway inner loop, were far in the future in 1920. Then the streetcar ran along Fifth Avenue.

By the time I came along, in the 1960s, the streetcar was gone. But Third Avenue ran straight in front on the school, no curve for the freeway onramp. Seventh Avenue was only four lanes wide with a friendly crossing guard named Paul. We lived on Culver Street when I was in first and second grades, then moved to Cypress in today's Willo historic district for the remainder of my time there.

Without wide streets or the freeway that nearly caused Kenilworth's demolition, this was a large, connected neighborhood. Once I was in fourth grade, I had the run of the place with my friends. The boundaries were from Thomas to Roosevelt and Central to 15th Avenue. No play dates for us.

Soda fountains abounded at several drug stores, including Rexall at Roosevelt and Third Avenue, Ryan-Evans at Seventh Avenue and McDowell, and another (McCrory's?) at Central and McDowell. We had drinking fountains at every gas station and the Circle K beside Val DeSpain's Chevron at Seventh Street and McDowell.

Grass, hedges, flowers, and shade and palm trees were everywhere. This included Kenilworth. Today's parking lots or space lost to the deck park/freeway were broad grass playgrounds. Another ran west of the school to Seventh Avenue. Only chain-link fences separated the schoolgrounds from the outside world. Teachers parked along the sidestreets.

The neighborhood also included the lovely Moreland and Portland parkways, with block-long shaded grassy parks bordered by one-lane streets and apartments. Architecture ranged from bungalows and mansions (such as that of wealthy sidewalk builder "Frenchy" Vieux) to period revival houses and apartments of different eras, territorial to the 1950s.

It was a great place to grow up. Adults who grew up in suburbs never had this.

Kenilworth was the alma mater of Barry Goldwater, Governor and Senator Paul Fannin, and Phoenix Mayor Margaret Hance. My classmates included Sterling Beeaff now of KBAQ and Andre Goodfriend, a distinguished career diplomat, as well as the Rehnquist children and the Harveys (of Fred Harvey fame; Byron Harvey III, their father, conveyed a priceless collection to the Heard Museum). For awhile Bill Thompson's — Wallace of Wallace and Ladmo — daughter attended.

Kenilworth's 1960s student body was remarkably diverse (not in a woke way). In addition to the wealthy of Palmcroft, students included poor kids who lived south of Roosevelt and the middle class, whites, Mexican-Americans, and African-Americans. In those days, the public schools were where nearly everyone went. Most teachers were superb. They were decently paid and never had to use their own money to buy supplies.

These gifts were not apparent to me initially. I was such a timid little boy when I started first grade (I went to kindergarten in Coolidge) that my grandmother sat in the back of the classroom for the first half of my first day. I can still her sitting there.

I was even more terrified by the air raid drills, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. The high-ceiling classrooms with big windows offered no duck-and-cover protection. So we were herded into the interior auditorium where we faced the walls, using our arms to cover our heads and necks.

Speaking of high windows, they were open when we went back to school in September, no air conditioning. The oasis then ensured that summer was shorter and less severe than now.

Here are some other memories I wrote in a 2010 column:

At a time when most Arizona schools reflect a dehumanizing prison architecture (including my rebuilt beloved Coronado High), Kenilworth still stands as a monument when American public buildings, especially schools, were built to inspire and animate a great people to great deeds.

When Kenilworth was completed, Woodrow Wilson was finishing the misbegotten final year of his second term and Arizona had not been a state for even a decade. Phoenix's population was 29,000; it barely extended beyond McDowell Road. The gaudy boom of the 1920s and its horrific crash into the Great Depression were still in the future. The dams on the Salt River were new and the Central Arizona Project seemed an impossible aspiration for a frontier state.

Kenilworth was blessed with able, kind teachers.

I think of Miss Metcalfe in first grade, who taught generations of children there. I chose to write with my pen nestled between my first and second fingers. She said that was fine — her sister wrote that way.

Miss Shannon in the third grade, who suspended regular class so we could all watch the World Series. No "teaching for the test" with these fine educators. Miss Tuttle was the beloved principal, who retired around my third grade.

Mr. Hall was a new teacher in seventh grade, a young man who had served in the Army and held himself like a soldier. Seventh was when I encountered the worst bullying by a gang of young thugs — anyone who talks of the "kindness of children" has forgotten what it was like to be a child. They singled me out and relentlessly poked, pinched and gang-punched me for much of the year. One of my sins was the way I spelled my first name. Mr. Hall watched but wisely stood back. He knew more about me, and more about self-respect, than I did. One day, being pursued down a stairwell by this gang — God, I dreaded the wide sunlit stairwells and their vulnerability — something inside me gave way. I swung at one of the lads and connected. His nose snapped. It felt good. Damned good. The others were...suddenly afraid. I wrestled a second one to the ground and they all fled. I never had a bully problem again, ever.

Good times outnumbered the bad.

I worked scraping plates in the cafeteria, as well as serving on Hall Patrol. The career topper was being on the AV crew, setting up, taking down, fixing and moving around film projectors, film-strip machines and record players. The AV crew had keys to the classrooms, heady stuff for a 12-year-old.

The library was a sanctuary (in the school, not using the public library as is often the case today). Every grade had music class, and the Music Memory program exposed us to classical music, as well as a trip to hear the Phoenix Symphony.

I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout — although I dropped out after making First Class when my interest in girls increased. As we got older, in eighth grade, we learned saucy gossip about a principal we disliked. The freedom of school was amazing compared to today: a simple, low cyclone fence ran around most of Kenilworth, except for the athletic fields; older students would go to lunch at Jack in the Box on McDowell. We walked and rode our bikes to school along the straight, honest streets with city sidewalks.

But trouble was coming. The big freeway plan had been laid down and a massive sheet of concrete was to carry Interstate 10 a hundred feet in the air over where Kenilworth once stood. It became nearly impossible to get loans for houses on Moreland and Portland, in the freeway's path, and the first of central Phoenix's now ubiquitous vacant lots appeared and spread. The flying freeway with its monstrous "helicoil" offramps was defeated, but would not go away. Even with the tunnel, many wanted Kenilworth demolished as had happened to so many older Phoenix schools. Somehow Kenilworth beat the odds.

Kenilworth now carries the unsavory name "inner-city school" but it has won outstanding ratings. It's sad that most of the better-off Anglos in the now fashionable historic-district neighborhoods adjoining Kenilworth send their children to private schools. They ride buses and don't play together in the alleys of Willo or F.Q. Story or at Encanto Park. Kenilworth today is mostly Hispanic, no doubt suffering under a Legislature that have made Arizona schools a national disgrace.

Kenilworth remains a beacon of keeping faith, of what Phoenix was, could have been, and the soul it still has if one is willing to look for it. I happily plant my heart there.

Yet it also poses the implacable question. How could the Baby Boomers, most beneficiaries of the public schools, have let them go? How could they have accepted the soft apartheid in public education? How could so many of them become enemies of "government schools" — these the same self-proclaimed worshippers of the Founders. Well, the Founders believed in an educated citizenry and free public education for all, not a profit for the "school choice" racket.

Kenilworth still stands, asking.

A century has come and gone. For me, more than five decades have passed, blink of an eye, blade of grass... But like so many others, I received priceless gifts from Kenilworth School. Happy anniversary.

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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

Comments

[jay K himelstein]

This is one of the most wonderful and inspiring of all the awesome articles you have written. KUDOS

[Ann B. Aycock]

Absolutely loved this article, my memories are much earlier—graduated Isaac Junior High in 1948

[Joyce Fields]

I walked to Kenilworth in Kindergarten. I lived at 3rd Avenue and Lewis. It was about a mile but I didn't mind. It was nice in those days when you didn't need to be afraid of everything. I went to Kenilworth for 9 years and still remember most of my friends from Kindergarten! We all went through this together, all those years, then high school and finally U of A! I love your comments. It was a great time growing up!

[Bob Herman]

Really enjoyed this column.

[toughteri]

Newish fans - it must have been a good school. I had similar memories of my Chgo education in the 50s. Gone with the wind.

[Donna Ballard]

didn't they girl and boy entrances...seem to remember that

[Chuck Halnan]

Great story, Jon. My mom lived a few blocks away and had Miss Metcalfe in the first grade in the late 1920s.

[Cal Lash]

Notable features: Kenilworth School opened in 1920. The elements of classical design, such as classical columns and the acanthus-leaved capitals of the pilasters in the halls and auditorium were designed to compare the new school, built of local brick, with the ancient temples of learning. The building was named for the novel Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott. Because the novel is set at Kenilworth Castle in England, the school features a modified turret on the north side.

[Pop Logan]

Good read, Jon. Reminds me of my K-3 years at Washington Elementary in Bloomington, IL. Similar style building, tall windows, no AC, big stairwells. Remember the civil defense drills, being sent home the day JFK was assassinated. Remember we would bring our costumes to school on Haloween, and the teachers would parade us through the neighborhood, to the delight of the neighbors. If I close my eyes and drift back, I can still hear the rustle and smell the slightly damp leaves as we marched along.

We left Illinois and moved to Scottsdale between my junior and senior year of HS. Like you, I am a Coronado HS graduate (1975), but being the new kid and missing my friends back home, I dont have really fond memories of the place. My sister who started there as a freshman had a much better experience, she was in fine arts and had many of the same teachers you did.

[Charles Harvey]

You evoked the sixties at Kenilworth and in Central Phoenix so well!!! I share these memories, would only add the many pleasures of Encanto Park, the Phoenix Public Library and living close to the Fairgrounds and Coliseum to make it even more complete!! And thanks for the Harvey Family shout-out!!!
Charles Harvey MD