SCRAPPED! Crossman Alernative High School @ Woodrow Wilson/ Hazelwood...

[Zacha341]

Drove by it last week and it is 'picked' clean to the bone nearly! EVERY FIRST FLOOR WINDOW REMOVED... In less the two weeks - 90% scrapped. If you know this building you know it is HUGE, beautiful structure, wide, with two side wings cornering towards the back field. Spanning a full block of Woodrow Wilson between Hazelwood and Blaine.

I think this school was originally Hutchens Jr. High. Not sure...

Scary area and PITCH BLACK at night with zero street lights. I'll try to get some day photos of the stripping, but here are a few shots of what it once looked like... Anyone notice this? I pass W-Wilson daily and noticed it happened fast - no more than a week and a half.

Around the corner is the Herman Keifer complex now also vacant but patrolled 24/7 as they know it too will be picked clean if not patrolled. The original Crossman school at Clairmont at the Lodge sites wide open with every window and door missing -- with a DPS 'For Sale' sign on it....

If HK gets opened up and stripped were gonna have THREE mega open hulks less then a mile from one another!

Anyone recall this school? Who was the architect?

[Neilr]

This is Hutchens Middle School.


Here's a screenshot from Flickr posted by pinehurst 19475. He writes that the school was built in 1922 and that the firm of Malcomson & Higginbotham were the architects.

Lily Tomlim is a well-known alumna of Hutchens. There was a glass case in the school's library with an old yearbook opened to the page with her picture.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Thank you for confirming the name. Per the fine print on that Flickr attachment this school [[Hutchins) was 'nominated' for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. We can see that went well. I recall when it was converted to the Alternative High School [[Crossman). Then abandoned... there was no attempt to 'seal' this building as attempted with other schools such as Fairbanks at the corner of the Lodge service drive and Seward.

See photos just taken of the scraping! A friend living nearby says you can see flash lights going on at night inside the structure and banging and pounding of metals being beat out of it and windows torn out.

[Zacha341]

http://www.sherlockphoto.com/gallery/?location=266

This web site shows photos [[interior and exterior) of the original Carolyn Crossman school, fully scraped a couple of years ago not far from Hutchins. See photo five, you can see Herman Keifer thru the missing windows.

[renf]

Hutchins was one of about 85 Detroit public schools nominated for inclusion
in the National Register of Historic Places. Does anyone know where that
nomination process stands? Some of these once elegant schools may be
razed before the nomination process is complete. Does anyone have a list of the Detroit public schools so nominated? Thanks.

[Johnnny5]

Only in Detroit! I'm not just saying that, something like this literally would not happen in other cities. I travel throughout the Midwest attending auctions at shuttered public schools and in other rust belt cities [[Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, etc) this does not happen. Some of the schools I have been to have been closed for years and other than the occasional damage from vandals or the elements they are almost entirely intact.

If DPS can not handle securing these schools [[And it's obvious that they can't) then they should be arranging for them to be professionally salvaged the moment they are shuttered. They are simply throwing away money by allowing thieves and vandals to ransack these buildings.

[masterblaster]

I just called DPS to ask them to board up the Crossman/Hutchins Building. The person I talked to did not know if the building was still owned by DPS. I also told her that Southwestern High School had been breached.

[WaCoTS]

well from what i hear Southwestern HS has been actually well looked after by DPD. i drive past it often on my way to / from Fort Wayne, and noticed an open door and a window, but i had also heard scrappers/kids are getting arrested there routinely.

im guessing its one of the ones they have battery-powered / cellular motion detectors or cameras inside of. would be great to see that school saved, as it is in a neighborhood that could be on its way back up when the DRIC is completed. that is, if the opposite effect doesnt take precedent.

it certainly seems odd that with an open door for that long, it hasnt been totally picked clean yet. so im guessing its being watched. actually i also saw Border Patrol parked there in front of of it on Devils Nite.

[Johnnny5]

Southwestern was one of the few locations where DPS auctioned off the contents while they were still in building. They did not sell off the permanently attached items, so I assume they may have plans for that building. Whether it be sale or reuse in the future.

[GUSHI]

Just another normal day in the d.

[fareastsider]

Heard this on the radio today.http://michiganradio.org/post/michig...-metal-thieves

[p69rrh51]

AN image of Henry B. Hutchins School from a 1922 Thumb Tack Club of Detroit publication.