Stimulating school: Schurz High in Chicago

I've always had a great liking for school architecture. When I was younger, I remember going on occasional drives to other neighborhoods here in Memphis and seeing schools outside of the ones in my neighborhood. Some of the better ones were Hillcrest High (with the mighty Viking perched on top of the building, still standing tall and proud to this day) and the old Mitchell High (which featured a brick "M" in the front of the buildings). My junior high, Raleigh-Egypt, had a big round window that was a nice touch along with a cafeteria that had a big revolving device where you could line up at individual stations and grab burgers and fruit pies as the slowly spun past. Great stuff, wonder if it's still there? Anyway, to my young mind a school in a different neighborhood was something quite exotic and interesting and it's something that's still stuck with me today.

Schurz High is located on 3601 North Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood. It's named for Carl Shurz who was among other things, a German revolutionary, a journalist and editor and a reformer (his wife Margarethe established the kindergarten system in the United States). Schurz was also was a Union general in the Civil War and served as the 13th Secretary of the Interior. He bore a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln and is famous for the saying "My country right or wrong; if right, to be kept right and if wrong to be set right." All in all, excellent qualifications for having a school named after you (there's a Schurz Park in New York City, among other things named after him). Wikipedia provides some interesting reading on him here.

The land for the current Schurz High was purchased in 1908 and the school opened two years later. The cost? A princely $525,000. For that, students in Irving Park got an assembly hall, a gym, a foundry, a forgeroom, a physiological lab and a lunch room. They also got an architectural masterpiece. Designed by Dwight H. Perkins (oddly enough, a native Memphian!) , Schurz High combines the best elements of the Illinois and Prairie Schools. It was designated a Chicago landmark in 1979, taking its place alongside the Buckingham Fountain and the Chicago Theater among others, and is also considered one of the 150 Great Places in Illinois, according to the American Institute of Architects. And it is a great place, a beautiful woody looking campus that I hope the student body appreciates.

It seems like it would; Schurz has produced two Nobel Laureates (Vincent du Vigneaud for chemistry in 1955--I can imagine that he came in for a fair amount of joshing--and Harry Moskovitz for economics in 1990). Athletic success seems to be limited--two state baseball titles, the last coming in 1969 represents the pinnacle here--but academically the Bulldogs seem to be living up to their motto "A block long and a world wide." The school has produced Millennium Scholars in three of the past five years and the academic decathlon team kicks tail on a regular basis. The current school population of 2,500 makes it the third-largest in the state and the racially and culturally diverse student body can take advantage of strong programs in architecture, music and finance.