Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

70 Coddington Street (Quincy High School)

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Quincy High School on Coddington Street, a historically significant component of the Quincy Center Local Historic District, is actually Quincy's third high school. The first high school, now demolished, was built on High School Avenue shortly after 1852 when free high school education first became available in Quincy. The present Central Middle School, 1012 Hancock Street, was built in 1894 to be Quincy's second high school and served in that capacity until the new Quincy High School on Coddington Street was built in 1924.

In 1912 an Industrial School was started in a room of the Central Middle School, 1012 Hancock Street, (then the Quincy High School). One year later, it was moved to the Old Adams School (now demolished) in South Quincy. When the new high school on Coddington Street was completed, there was a special wing for the Industrial Day School. In 1930 the name of the Industrial Day School was changed to the Quincy Trade School and in 1945 a regular Quincy High School diploma was awarded to its students. The 1953 addition to the high school was to enlarge and modernize the Quincy Trade School and stayed in that use until the new Quincy Vocational Technical High School was built just across the street on Woodward Avenue in 1967.

The architects for both the original 1924 Quincy High School and its 1953 addition were the well known Cram & Ferguson who had earlier designed St. Chrysostom's, 1 Linden Street in 1894, moved the large "Home Making School" on Coddington Street to Saville Avenue just behind the present high school in 1921, and would later design the addition to the Court House, 12-24 Coddington Street, in 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
William Churchill Edwards, Historic Quincy, Massachusetts, 1957, p. 141, 144.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy: 350 Years, 1974, p. 44.
"The Schools of the Adams District". Closing Report, Adams School, Abigail Avenue, 1981.
Original plans, Maintenance Department, Quincy Public Schools.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Between 1900 and 1930 Quincy witnessed a period of unprecedented period of school building (19 in this inventory). The discipline of pedagogy, school philosophy and school architcure were well established and numerous books on these subjects appeared, amongst them the 1902 School Architecture by Edmund March Wheelwright (City, Architect, Boston). The author thoroughly explored educational systems and structures in Europe and in the United States. The majority of the American buildings shared certain characteristics in massing and planning: they were self contained buildings, generously fenestrated, with a central axis, side pavillions and decorative elements in the classical or colonial revival mode. Of the 19 schools mentioned above, half of them had longitudinal facades, Whose lenght was relieved by projecting end pavillions (as used by E. M. Wheelwhright in the Brighton High School, Boston, pre 1902). This facade plan was employed by numerous Boston architects of the period, such as Chamberlain and Austin, in the English High School in Cambridge (Wheelwright, p.186), Hartwell, Richardson and Driver in the High School at Springfield (School Architecture, Wheelwright, p.199) and many others. Cram and Fergusson, well known prolific Boston architects (see Douglass S. Tucci, Boston City and Suburb and Ralph Adams Cram American Medievalist) chose this same configuration for the main facade of the Quincy High School. The end walls of the projecting pavillions are ornamented with a recessed panel whose field is composed of a brick diaper pattern, a technique often employed to relieve blank walls. The symmetrical facade is composed of two large sections of four bays which flank the central portion (three bays wide) delineated at the flat roof level by a stylized Greek pediment. The rhythmical subtle patterning of the fenestration, the central wide stairs, and the projecting end sections all serve to break up the long longitudinal wall. Since 1979, the windows have been filled with filed blue panels. The shorter side elevations have a central projecting center. It is an impressive institutional structure, an important component in the Quincy Center Local Historic District and one building in an enclave of four fine educational buildings on Coddington Street.

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