Designed by William B. Ittner and built in 1901, Wyman Elementary School sits on a quiet dead end block of Theresa Avenue south of Park Avenue, just east of Grand Boulevard and Gallaudet School.
Despite the installation of some extremely ugly front doors, the building is in good shape and still functions as a part of the public schools system. The subtle brickwork patters are not noticeable at first.
But it’s a beautiful school, with an overall simple ornamental style.
That telecom tower is way unfortunate.
Judging by the rust, it has been there long enough to develop its own St. Louis Patina.
That is the transmitter tower for KSLH-FM, the old St. Louis Public Schools radio station. It began back in 1950:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/36047060/kslh-school-fm-station-to-take-the/
I think the brickwork on this school would have been better if Ittner had chosen a uniform color, which the light diagonal patterns could have played off better. Instead, there is a pattern-less gradation of brick color with random dark bricks scattered about.
It is good to see a school that retains its original window sashes. They almost always seem to be replaced, either in incongruous metal or cheap vinyl.
I graduated eighth grade from Wyman in 1958.
The building to the North of Wyman used to be the public school system’s audio visual department. It had films, slides, stuffed birds and other items that were distributed to the schools for classes. That is in the day when the school system had its own photographers for class and yearbook photos. Carpenters and other skilled craftsmen until such time as they thought they were no longer important plus economic constraints. I think the building is currently lofts or apartments. While I doubt that the tower is used any more, it is probably too expensive to demolish and the system doesn’t have the money. It was still there on 5-12-2023 when I took some pictures of Wyman for a class brochure for the class of Jan 1953. St. Louis University is starting to buy and dominate any loose parcels of land, so perhaps they will take it down.