Ellsworth Dean designed this school, built in 1903. The rich cinnamon brick—actually made of several related colors of brick—still looks dignified today. The school is now the primary school for the Environmental Charter School.
This year’s garden emphasizes native American crops, including corn and Echinacea purpurea.
We have more pictures of the Park Place School in the winter, including a complete front elevation.
For some reason, Park Place is one of those neighborhoods that have no official existence on city planning maps. It is counted as part of Point Breeze South, but there is a considerable gap between the rest of Point Breeze South and Park Place, which slops over into Wilkinsburg, thus becoming one of the rare neighborhoods that ignore city boundaries. In fact the border goes through a number of buildings and houses.
Ellsworth Dean was the architect of this Renaissance palace of education, which was built in 1903. It is now an “Environmental Charter School.” We assume that means children can have the unique experience of learning in an environment. (Actually, old Pa Pitt just looked up the school’s Web site, and now he is wishing there had been such things as Environmental Charter Schools when he was a tot back in pre-Revolutionary days.)
