Dilapidated building at Aldercrest Annex Is torn down

Photo by Nancy Moreyra

By Nancy Moreyra

On October 4 and 5, the demolition crew began tearing down the Old Kellogg Middle School cafeteria building at Aldercrest Annex (see picture below). I am not sorry to see the dilapidated building come down because it has been an eyesore for years and has attracted illicit activities. However, the history of the building is interesting (refer to “Shore to Shore, Line to Line: A History of the Shoreline School District”)

Einar Anderson of Steinhart, Theriault, and Anderson Architectural firm of Seattle designed the building, a firm that designed many of the schools in the 1950s and 1960s across King County. The school facility was completed in 1962 for a project cost of about $1.1 million (that’s roughly $13.00 a square foot). Because of the era in which it was designed, the building has some “Googie” architectural details (e.g. the scalloped roof-line on the class room buildings that can be seen over the top of the old gymnasium).

The Shoreline School District named the new school after Nobel prize winner, Frank Billings Kellogg. At that time, the District named its middle schools after Nobel prize winners (e.g. Einstein, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and Nicholas Murray Butler). The school was dedicated November 1962 with Francis Thieman as the first principal. Only a few years after its opening, over 700 students attended class which housed 7, 8, and 9th graders. With over 700 students and full staff of teachers and administrative personnel, the school was a bustling and busy center of learning.

In December 1982, arson destroyed the school’s library and activity center. (The open slab of concrete that can be seen in the forefront of the picture is near where the library once stood.) Old Kellogg was closed in 1986 and the school moved to the Thomas Hunt Morgan Middle School which was remodeled and renamed Kellogg Middle School.

To me, this week’s demolition and the current work of the Aldercrest Annex task force mark a new beginning for the old school property. It once held an institution of learning and hopefully the future will bring another community-enriching use for the land – the core objective of the task force.

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