| The left side view of the CHS facility clearly shows the twin observatories atop the facility which, at Broad & Green Streets, was centrally located for the student population at the time. Fire destroyed the observatory at the rear of the building sometime after the photo was taken. Educationally speaking, CHS had been experiencing a decrease during the 1920's of its elite status as a result of the leveling of high school curricula in the high schools across the city and the anti-elitism attitude of the School District of Philadelphia Board of Education. "By 1915 many regional annexes of Central High School (Frankford, Germantown)became independent. Its honorifically-titled professors were downgraded to simply teachers" (Labaree, 87); differentiation in salary and the perks of teaching at CHS were eliminated by the mid- teens. The tradition of "annual reports, final examinations, and descriptive catalogues"(Labaree, 88)had ended by the early 1930's. The Central Manual Training High School's vocational program would be separated from the academic program and and housed, for a time, in the Broad & Green Streets facilities, now to be known as the Benjamin Franklin High School (in honor of the father of free public education in Philadelphia). The proposal of the new building embodying the Dr. Haney et al commitment to restoring the elitism of CHS was to be realized by the mid-thirties. May 20, 1928(Photo courtesy of www.phillyhistory.org) |
