The Hawthorne Community
Emergence and Survival of a Historic Indianapolis Neighborhood
by
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"George Washington High School had been a focal point of Westside history since its opening in 1927. Its closing in 1995 was the proverbial last straw for an area whose multi-faceted struggle in recent years had been unrelenting. The impact of this closing was felt on all of the area neighborhoods equally. The recounting of its closure offers an additional window on to the role of public institutions in keeping communities alive, and on the impact of shutting down a community school. As IPS (Indianapolis Public Schools) continued to deal with the economic consequences of its declining student numbers, Washington High School stood out as having the lowest enrollment (1,227 students) of the seven city high schools. As rumors of the possible closing began to spread, reactions came from every quarter. In 1994 the Indianapolis Star's Dick Cady interviewed a number of attendees at Washington High's 12th Annual Reunion (300 attended!) about the possibility of the school closing and summarized their feelings. “Closing Washington High School, as IPS may do," he said, "would be tantamount to grinding into the dirt an entire enclave of the city and the multicultural heritage it represents.” Washington’s former long-time Principal, Cloyd Julian, said: “We’re not just talking about saving Washington High School. We’re talking about saving the Westside.” An outspoken pastor of Washington Street Presbyterian Church in Hawthorne, Rev. John Koppitch, represented the feelings of folk in this area when he made an impassioned appeal in the Indianapolis Star to keep the high school open, accusing the city of consistently dealing unfairly with its poorest areas. I serve a community devastated by the loss of six neighborhood schools. Areas around the empty, boarded-up and deteriorated school buildings are among the worst in the city. In our entire parish area (Haughville, Hawthorne, and Stringtown neighborhoods) only two public schools remain, School #50 [Hawthorne School] and Washington High School. That the most stable residential areas of our parish surround these two schools is no accident. Our neighborhood churches, resident organizations, community centers and development corporations will be hard pressed to overcome the destructive effects of yet another abandoned school building. Further, previous school closings, combined with the busing of our black children to township schools, have effectively eliminated Near-Westside parents from participating in the much-heralded Select Schools program. And now our high school is to be closed as well? To solve racial imbalance problems in township schools, it is our children who are bused all over the county. To solve IPS’ financial woes in the late 1970s, it was our neighborhood elementary schools that were closed. To solve the present financial crisis, it is our high school that is on the chopping block. Why should families of one community suffer the burdens of system-wide problems not just once but over and over again. State Representative Paul Cantwell echoed this sentiment in a brief comment: “This would mean one big hole in the Westside. You might as well close the community.” An IPS board member, Donald Payton, bitterly attacked the closing: “They might as well put a fence around the Westside and call it the Westside industrial park or something.” Despite local sentiment and demonstrations, the school finally closed in 1995. School #50 (Hawthorne School), the last public school in the Nearwestside, closed two years later! The Director of the Hawthorne Center, Diane Arnold, who had grown up in Hawthorne, attended Hawthorne School and graduated from GWHS, recalled the closings and its immediate impact upon the stability of the community. They closed all of the schools. So literally we were a community with no public schools whatsoever. All of the children in our neighborhood were bussed out to make the racial balance for other schools . . . We lost lots and lots of people who had the resources to move to Decatur or put their kids in Decatur Schools or moved away into a Township. Lots of people. So it was pretty traumatic. Arnold continued with a more specific description of the consequences of that closing. When the high school closed, high school aged kids in the neighborhood stopped going to school! They didn’t make the segue to Northwest [Northwest High School] where they were now supposed to attend because that meant they had to get up and get on the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning. When Washington was open, if they didn’t get up until 8:30 or 9 o’clock or 9:30 they could still walk to Washington and get the majority of their school day in. They just didn’t make that. I would say the dropout rate in this community, in Stringtown and Hawthorne, went as high as 80%. Our kids just stopped going. So we lost people. People moved out if they had the resources to move out. They couldn’t sell their houses so they started renting their houses, which meant that we had more transients; we had more people that weren’t part of that stable fiber of the community. Drop out rate went higher; unemployment rate went higher. Factories had closed. So it really had a very negative impact on our community. Longstanding residents began to leave. Many single-family properties became rentals."
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About the Book
Local leaders and residents of urban neighborhoods across the country have mourned the loss of community that once existed in clearly defined neighborhoods. This book tells the story of such a loss. But it also tells about this community’s decades of building and success, of hard work and sharing, of creativity and celebration. Hawthorne emerged as a residential working class neighborhood on the fringe of Indianapolis, Indiana. It began in the early 20th century as new arrivals settled on a remaining strip of open farmland two miles from the city’s center. An stable society of churches, schools, businesses and social groups evolved and prospered well into the post-WW II era. From the early 1960s to the late 1990s the residents’ expectations of permanence gave way to a gradual but devastating series of developments over which they had no control. Many of the residents and the institutions that had supported them either closed or moved away opening the space for newcomers and rentals. Ultimately the neighborhood lost the network of local institutions that had anchored the community for decades. The Hawthorne Community Center, left virtually alone, continued its work and adapted its programs for a changing neighborhood. It was forced to assume the multiple roles of advocate, primary source for the residents in need, and intermediary between the neighborhood and external sources of support. The Hawthorne story provides a useful context for any discussions about the future of constantly changing historic neighborhoods and their relationship with the larger urban establishment. Local histories such as this one also offer a valuable tool to help both residents and outsiders free themselves from the negative stereotypes that tend to blame victims for their current situation.
About the Author
Guthrie has spent three decades teaching history in a mid-west university. He has lived and worked in small towns and urban communities in the U. S. and abroad. He brings his experience with social change and cultural differences to bear on the dynamics of neighborhood change and the importance of local history. Arnold has lived most of her life in the Hawthorne neighborhood. She has a deep sense of the neighborhood’s history, and strong personal and professional connections to many of the community’s important institutions. Her thirty-two year tenure as Executive Director of Hawthorne Community Center gives her a unique perspective on the challenges facing the neighborhood.