Kennedy School: No Smoking in the Boys Room, but Beer Aplenty in the Girls Room

In 1915 a single story school was constructed on NE 33rd Ave within the hinterlands of Northeast Portland. Named “Kennedy School” due to its benefactor John D. Kennedy, a local landowner who sold off the piece of his property on which the school would sit in order to attract builders to his underdeveloped subdivision, the school was launched in 1913 as several portable cabins until the larger structure was built in 1915. With a measly enrollment of 29 students, most of the student registration came from Irvington Park children who previously would have attended Vernon school, which itself had an enrollment of 648 students in 1913, an increase of 13 from1912 despite the pilfering by Kennedy. In those days the area around Kennedy school sat at the end of the Alberta street car line, in an area that was mostly wooded, had no paved streets, and had sidewalks built of wood.

By June of 1914 the Portland School Board had the requisite funds to proceed with construction of a permanent Kennedy school structure on the location. Designed by Floyd A Naramore, the single story Italian villa concept was a rarity in Portland at the time, which tended to favor multistory school buildings. The plans generated some opposition, which included one person referring to the future building as a “one-story woodshed” and an unsuccessful motion to have the design reviewed (for a sanity check, it was presumed) by William B. Ittner, a famous contemporary school architect in St Louis. The original plans for the school incorporated a “unit” approach, with the first unit including only 8 class rooms and a manual training room, at the estimated cost ranging between $35K to $45K and a footprint the size of 60 x 200 feet. Future additions were planned from the start for an expansion that would include 24 class rooms, cooking and sewing rooms, an auditorium with seating capacity of 600, a stage and a “motion picture booth”. The Kennedy school was a symptom of wider population growth throughout Portland at the time, with multiple schools being erected simultaneously, including the new structures of Fulton Park School ($24K), Couch School ($160K), Franklin School ($100K) and Shattuck School ($160K), as well as a $55K addition to the Richmond School and a $30K addition to the Albina Homestead School.

The year 1915, with all its sparkling new school buildings, ushered in a new plan for the modernization of education as set by Portland Superintendent Alderman, which included the addition of specialized instructors for the teaching of the “new studies” of cooking, sewing, manual training, music, drawing and organized play, to join the existing corps of teachers instructing traditional subjects and thus a division of teaching duties, known as the “two group” plan, in order to make for a more efficient teaching process. As an example of the cutting edge design incorporated into the recently erected education buildings, the new Shattuck school came complete with a sewing room, a cooking room, a woodworking room, a forge room, a drawing room, and its own tiled swimming pool. This was also the year that St. Johns was incorporated into Portland, to be followed by Linton in 2 years, and both of these neighborhoods would be added into the Portland school system in 1915. In all, there was an energy of pride cascading through the people of Portland as a result of so much growth in the funding of public works and education projects, with one reporter predicting that Portland would soon lead the West Coast in its public school systems. Despite the pomp and circumstance, not all aspects of education had been modernized with the turn of a new school year. It was during this time that Portland was still struggling with the question of whether or not a married woman should be allowed to teach in public schools.

The final permit for Kennedy school was taken out by John Almeter in mid-May of 1915 following a late April bidding contest, with a projected construction cost of $26K. Note that this did not include other costs such as heating, ventilation, plumbing, painting and hardware, contracts for all of which were filled throughout the summer at varying costs. The final cost to build the school rang in at $46K, but Portland Superintendent Alderman was quick to praise the one-story design, which reduced cost per room by $5000, or almost 200%, in relation to older school structures made up of several stories. According to one Oregonian article published November 23, 1915, a visiting superintendent from the Kansas City school system called the Kennedy school the “best building of the one-story type on the Pacific Coast”.

Aside from a place of learning, the school functioned as a community meeting place for elections, hearings, PTA conferences, and other activities. Other than that, the school lived quite an unextraordinary existence consisting of normal mundane school occurrences, the likes of which can be illustrated by several incidents in the early years where a rock thrown during recess fractured little Sherman Hendrikson’s skull, a reading by Kennedy School eight-grade student Laura Smith entitled “What does the Enforcement of Prohibition Mean to Our Country” was well received by the crowd, a girl that went missing following a reprimand from the Kennedy School principal for soliciting war funds without prior approval was later found at a nearby library, and a pervert was flushed from the woods after failing to lure an 8-year old student walking home from school into his clutches with a doll.

The school remained open for a short 60 years. Traditionally a school servicing students at or below the 8th grade, by 1969 it was only servicing students through the 5th grade with a population averaging 520 students, while the previously serviced 6th, 7th and 8th graders were bussed to Whitaker middle school. Finally, in 1975 the Kennedy school was closed and shuttered up after it was determined that the significant decrease in attendance did not warrant the cost to refurbish its deteriorating facilities. As a testament to the decrepit state that the Kennedy school was in, a 1973 newspaper feature on the deteriorating schools in Portland included a photo of a rag chain in the Kennedy school cafeteria that was being used to control roof leaks. For over 20 years the building remained uninhabited in varying states of decay – water damage in the interior, graffiti on the exterior, and a courtyard overgrown with mushrooms and weeds – with only psychedelic boarding on the windows to hint at what was to come of its future. In 1989, against the wishes of the community that the building be made into a historic landmark, the Portland School Board unsuccessfully fought to tear down the structure, citing that the building had not been used for over 10 years, had no prospects for future use, sale or restoration, was an attraction for vandals and a hazard for children, and required school budget to maintain. Earlier that year an architect had estimated that the building would require between $1.3 million to $2.1 million in order to restore, the larger of the cost breakdowns coming in the form of repair/reconstruction and asbestos removal.

The building was saved from demolition by a collection of neighbors and prior students, parents and teachers of the school, as well as the Portland Development Commission. In 1989 an unidentified offer was made by a developer to turn the location into an assisted living facility for the elderly, which would ultimately demolish the structure. Amidst protests from the community interested in maintaining the structure as a historic site, the bid was ultimately denied (the school would ultimately be listed under the National Register of Historic Places in 1995). Then, in May of 1995, Mike and Brian McMenamin of the Northwest McMenamin Empire successfully bid $617,000 for purchase and restoration of the Kennedy School. The bid included the community support required to change the zoning of the building from residential to commercial. On October 22, 1997 , following an extensive $4.5 million renovation throughout the spring and fall of 1997 that would turn the school from a local eyesore into a recreation destination for the community, “first day of class” was officially announced when Sharon Kolb, Kennedy school’s 1975 PTA President, rang the original principal’s bell.

With a four day grand opening featuring free music, movies and tours, the school came back to life, with enough traffic to get the local residents complaining about noise and the poor emergency vehicle access to the surrounding neighborhoods. Today, with the initial excitement and growing pains a faint history, the Kennedy School serves as something like a resort destination for the liberal minded middle class or penny pinching hipster – enough cheap beer and entertainment to keep one interested for a night or two but lacking the environment degrading and slave-like pampering one finds at more posh resorts frequented by the robust testicled or silicon, diamond and Lycra encrusted executive elite. Rather than a sleek limo packed rotunda staffed by 25 demurring tip-starved natives one finds several bicycle lock areas in front and a parking lot out back where *shame!* one must transport their own luggage to their room.

The building retains its old layout and much of its old character but has been instilled with new life, partly thanks to the lush jungle-like landscaping and sprawling whimsical murals of painters Mary Topagna and Myrna Yoder. Chalkboards, cloakrooms, intercom systems, towering arched windows and old nursery rhymes scrawled on the wall can be found amidst the 35 guest rooms within the school. Some rooms include vintage telephones, consisting of a detachable earpiece and a mounted mouth piece that one can scream into when placing late night munchie orders, only to realize hours later that the phone is not connected to any service.

Amenities that certainly were not around back in the days of classes and detention include a movie theater showcasing $3 second-run movies, meeting and conference rooms, an outdoor heated saltwater soaking pool, a brewery featuring the Concordia line of McMenamins Ales, a library, a gym, a restaurant, and 5 bars of varying size, food and drink offerings. In addition to the regular happenings, Kennedy School stages frequent events including live music, CD releases, educational classes, Santa Claus meet and greets, May Day celebrations, class reunions, product tastings, and other parties. One of the conference rooms is dedicated for use by the Concordia Neighborhood Association, a gesture that showcases McMenamins’ focus on the integration of Kennedy school with the community.

For the ever-adored Mom out there, McMenamins launched in 2004 the “Mom Matinee”, which features midday movies catered to the toddler toting mother who is looking to get the hell out of the house but doesn’t want to be ostracized from society due to her screaming baby bundle. During Mom Matinees, screaming babies are an expected and adorable part of the round faced ambiance. Despite that, these are not movies for children. Even in the early days of the matinees the theater was showing adult films such as Vanity Fair, Fahrenheit 9/11, and The Bourne Supremacy.

In sum, the Kennedy school, saved from the clutches of certain death, has been revamped into a must-see Portland landmark. Next time that you visit Portland, consider spending a few nights at the Kennedy school, sleeping under its majestic windows, basking in its warm waters, and sampling its fine brews.

McMenamins Kennedy School is located on 5736 NE 33rd Avenue, Portland, OR. Parking is off of NE Jessup Street in the back of the building. Unless, of course, you are on bike.