Folks; A quarter of a billion dollars
Posted on 05/04/2008 4:21:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
What is it?" Kelly Charles asked as he walked to his job as a custodian in downtown Los Angeles and gazed up at a rather odd construction project. "A roller coaster?"
As I wandered the neighborhood, other guesses were:
A ski jump.
A toboggan run.
A water slide.
What's got everyone talking is the odd-looking tower that rises 140 feet above the 101 Freeway, directly across from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The futuristic metallic edifice, with a wraparound spiral Dr. Seuss would love, is not part of a theme park. It is the signature adornment on a new arts-oriented public high school that will cost roughly $230 million.
That's far more than the going rate for a more conventional school, but district officials argue that they already owned the site of the former L.A. Unified headquarters. Sure, but aren't these tough times for public schools? Aren't school districts facing huge cuts? Aren't many aging schools in disrepair?
You have to wonder how this will sit with parents who are being asked to contribute several hundred dollars per student to cover programs and staff members that tax dollars used to fund.
David Tokofsky, a former school board member, said he isn't opposed to a bit of a flair on an arts-oriented campus. But given all the budget problems -- not to mention the flailing administration of L.A. Supt. and Navy Adm. David L. Brewer -- the project "just looks like an absurdity," in Tokofsky's words.
Personally, I thought the big log flume was the latest improvement on the disastrous employee payroll system in L.A. Unified. Weekly pay could be sent down the chutes to teachers below, and whatever cash doesn't blow over Chinatown or fly into Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's belfry could be pocketed by teachers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
What can ya say 8-?
It’s Los Angeles, folks.
FantasyLand.
"art oriented" high school. What is that?
One that costs 230 million dollars. This way, they don’t have to buy books and paper and other stuff.
ROTFLOL!!!
$230 million for a high school for losers and street performance artists? Sheesh!
Folks; A quarter of a billion dollars
The LA school board will never, ever learn.
Oh!
I was wondering how somebody got permission to put up a water slide across the freeway from Our Lady of Angels Cathedral.
In 1975, the tri-county area of N.J where I lived build a brand new state of the art high school for $3 million, which we thought was a astounding amount of money
Nah....it’s the voters who will never learn. The “Board” should be run out of town on a rail.
We need to get ourselves some of that fancy culture stuff.
Us bitter low-lifes in flyover country just don’t understand.
It’s a symbol for dynamic thinking,” said architect Karolin Schmidbaur.
It looks like it was built from a bunch of miscellaneous ship pieces,, a disjointed mess.
Very symbolic of the state’s Gubamint and its leaders these days..
It’s for us English Learners.
It's ugly.
You should see our new libraries, they tore down the 1950’s libraries and built new 1950’s libraries. UGLY. I guess you have to be Mexican to appreciate them.
It’s ugly as hell, the spawn of the Frank Ghery school of architecture, with twisted metal and massive gaps in the structure.
the water slide is the our lady of angels cathedral!
watch archbishop maphony slide and slide.
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