Park View, D.C.

The Park View School ca. 1920

As I written about before, the Park View School was built to serve a dual purpose — that of a school and community center. At the time of its dedication in 1916, it was noted that the school was the first building outside of Alaska to combine these two functions. The auditorium was used early on to host community Thanksgivings, Park View Citizens’ Association meetings, plays and concerts.

The original skeletal mount of Triceratops, which premiered in 1905 at the Smithsonian. This was the world's first mount of a horned dinosaur.

In 1918, the school had both a community store and a post office on the lower level. By 1920, the building also contained a notary office and library in addition to being used as a recreation center. Adding to its educational purpose, 1920 also witnessed a gift to the school of an exact copy of the Triceratops skull in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection. The gift was made by Park View resident and National Museum curator Charles W. Gilmore.

While the Triceratops model is long-gone, I think it would be nice to get a replacement. As the school has yet to undergo modernization and renovation, rather than devote  interior space to such a large fossil, I would think a bronze model located on the school grounds would be more practical and additionally serve as public sculpture.

This entry was posted on October 7, 2010 at 7:01 am and is filed under History, Schools. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: community, history and culture, Park View, Schools