Modern Art
I have a calculus exam this coming Wednesday and I know none of the material for it, So naturally like any good student I drove an hour south to explore an abandoned school instead of studying. Martin Elementary School was originally a two room schoolhouse constructed in 1923 in the former Adams Township Ohio. I say former when talking about Adams township as it was annexed into the city of Toledo in the mid 1900s.
The two room schoolhouse was replaced in 1930 by a new 25,000 square foot school building featuring an auditorium, basement, and two above ground floors of classrooms. The school was eventually closed in 1983 by the Toledo School Board due to low attendance. At the time of closure the school only had roughly 120 students.
After the school was closed the classrooms and other spaces were converted for use as studios for visual/performing arts. The building would continue to house various tenants including; dance studios, karate centers, and art programs until around 2020 when the building lost the majority of its tenants due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately the landlord renting out the building gave up and left it to rot sometime between 2020 and 2021.
After the final tenants left, the building fell into disrepair at an alarming rate. As of writing this there are no current plans for the site
The auditorium sporting it's original 1930s design. The floor has warped significantly due to water damage.
When I first entered the building I began unpacking my equipment, somehow I had managed to loose my actually decent tripod so I had to use this cheap garbage one I found in the trash. Upon reaching inside my bag to grab it I cut my finger on a piece of broken glass that was hiding away inside my bag. With my now bloodied hands I begun to fold out my cheap tripod which decided to fall apart in my hands.
After ditching the ruins of my tripod I ventured out of the auditorium and into the school area. Due to the basement rooms having windows the school had a strange split first level.
The basement seemed to be primarily occupied by storage rooms, a kitchen, offices for the community garden outside, a few miscellaneous tenants, and the boiler room.
This classroom was transformed by "Jessica Mack" back around 2008 into "Paint Your Place". According to WTVG "Paint Your Place" offered paint parties for adults and children.
Paint Your Place was one of many tenants kicked out during the 2020 shutdown of the complex, in the same article it quotes "Her landlord decided to call it quits and she lost her space.".
Paint Your Place now operates at 3303 N Holland Sylvania Rd, Toledo, OH if anyone is interested in a "Paint Party". Personally I suck at every form of art so I don't see myself ever attending one.
In the basement I also found an office that seemed to be related to the community garden outside (which I believe still operates). Concerningly I also found a large number of personal documents which I would have expected the former occupants to have taken with them.
The buildings boiler room protruded sideways from the building into the parking lot creating a weird concrete pad outside. This building utilizes two Kewanee Compact Type C boilers, The compact and normal sized Type C boilers are fairly common in Ohio schools from this era.
The 1st floor or I guess in this case 1.5th floor was in the best condition out of any floor. It seems that the last tenants to leave primarily occupied this floor.
The closure of this building may have been a blessing in disguise for many as they now operate out of their own buildings. Giving them much more space to work with.
One of many dance studios.
These small studios had the worlds creakiest floors ever. I'm not sure how anyone could actually focus on practicing dance with how noisy the floor was.
The other half of the sectioned off classrooms had become offices of some sort. Sadly the majority of them were empty.
This yoga studio still had those 6ft apart stickers from COVID on the floor, its strange to think that in 5-10 years people will look back on these as historic remnants of the pandemic. I honestly can't remember one time where I saw people correctly using those space markers.
While heading up to the top floor I noticed this stairwell had a bit of an Art Deco style to it still. I guess it makes sense considering this building was build in 1930s during the tail end of the Art Deco era. One of the most prominent examples of Art Deco styling in Toledo is their public library downtown.
The southeast portion of the top floor was in extremely poor condition. On satellite imagery the roof appears damaged even when the building was in use, however this collapse must have occurred soon after closure as I don't see how anyone can legally inhabit a building in this condition.
This dance studio was in abysmal shape for 4 years of abandonment, the roof had completely given out and the floor was heavily warped due to rainwater making direct contact with it. The rate at which this room has decayed makes me worried for the future of the building as a whole.
The studios around the collapsed room were all in perfect shape still. It was very strange to see such a collapsed room in the same building that still had COVID signage on the floor.
This bathroom still had most of the original fixtures.
As I begun to make my way outside I suddenly got hit by a wave of sleepiness, while backtracking through the basement I discovered a relaxation room that I was not aware of before. Instead of just sleeping in my car like any normal person I decided to take a quick 15 minute nap on the sofa.
After my nap I decided to walk around the garden surrounding the school a bit and found this cool old tractor, I believe its a 1940s Ford 9N tractor, this was the first type of tractor in the US to incorporate the three-point hitch system which is commonplace on most tractors today.
It seemed that someone was still taking decent care of the garden despite the disrepair of the building and its surroundings.
The large amount of natural overgrowth in some areas
led a feeling of remoteness despite the fact the school is situated next to a fairly busy intersection.
led a feeling of remoteness despite the fact the school is situated next to a fairly busy intersection.
Anyways this will be my last post for the month as I really need to study for that test and don't really have any other places in mind at the moment.
Mutagen Out!
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