Franklin School - Washington, DC
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Metro2
N 38° 54.146 W 077° 01.773
18S E 324008 N 4307907
The Franklin School was built in 1865.
Waymark Code: WMMBYR
Location: District of Columbia, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2014
Views: 6
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
The Franklin School is a building designed by Adolf Cluss, located on Franklin Square at 13th and K Street in Washington, DC.
History
Built in 1869, the structure is currently unoccupied. Beginning in 2002, the building had been used as a homeless shelter, but the shelter was finally closed in September 2008. The decision to close the shelter remains controversial. It was briefly occupied by protesters associated with the Occupy movement on November 19, 2011.
A bust of Benjamin Franklin adorns the building's facade. The building's Great Hall was designed to seat 1,000 people and was a resource for community concerts, exhibitions, and public meetings. Franklin is one of thirteen buildings in Washington, D.C. to receive "interior landmark protection."
In addition to being an admired educational facility, a small plaque on its exterior describes the building's place in the history of telecommunications, noting Alexander Graham Bell's first wireless communication in 1880, where a beam of light was used to transmit a voice message using his newly invented Photophone. Bell's laboratory was nearby on 'L' Street and his work was a pioneering step in optical communications, the forerunner of fiber-optic communication systems which now carry most of the world's telecommunications traffic. Bell was also a well-known educator who taught at a special day school for deaf children, who trained teachers of the deaf, and who additionally created an institution for the study of deafness (also in Washington, DC).
The location of the school in a prominent neighborhood was intended to bring attention to age-graded, separate but equal classrooms for boys and girls. Offices for the Superintendent and the Board of Education were also housed in the Franklin School allowing administrators to see the benefits of the new educational system. The building also used big windows for light, roomy and airy spaces to enhance the learning environment.
The prominence Franklin School enjoyed was highlighted in the 1870s when studied in international expositions held in Vienna, Paris, and Philadelphia. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1996."