There are a couple unusual elements to an otherwise typical classroom on the fourth floor of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights. One is the fancy iron gridwork outside the windows that throws interesting shadows on the floor when the sun hits it just right. Then there’s the white painted door just to the right of the stout teacher’s desk.
It could be mistaken for the entrance to a closet, except it’s always closed, always locked.
“That’s for insurance purposes,” said Nancy Cavallo-Banolek, a 1972 Bloom graduate who volunteers overseeing the school’s extensive archives.
Unbarred, the door would offer access to the most distinctive feature of the 1930s-era building — its central tower. Encased in decorative brickwork, distinctive art deco terra cotta and elaborate metal grating running down the length of its fluted southern face, the tower’s innards belie its outer magnificence.
“It houses the ventilator that pulled air out of the school — basically a huge fan on a pulley system,” said Michael Boswell, a Bloom alumnus from the class of 1984. “All Bloom students know you can go inside the tower, but very few people have. It’s very off limits.”
Boswell, one of the few who got past the unmarked, white door in that fourth-floor classroom, was given access as he put together a commemorative photo book to mark Bloom’s 125th anniversary.
That birth date goes back to “old” Bloom at the intersection of Lincoln and Dixie highways, where ground was broken in 1900 for the city’s first high school less than a decade after Chicago Heights was incorporated.
The industrial city — the birthplace of Inland Steel and once home to a busy Alcoa plant — was weathering the initial stages of the Great Depression well. And Chicago Heights had influence. Not too long after leaders were able to reroute Lincoln Highway so it jogged north from Sauk Trail before resuming its westward route along main drag 14th Street, they attracted a massive federal Works Progress Administration project to accommodate their swelling student population. WPA workers broke ground on “new” Bloom in 1931.
And when it opened in 1934, there was plenty of cheap labor to facilitate the move. Students reportedly carried their own desks from the old school to their new digs along 10th Street.
“We would hold 60-plus year reunions, and still had a few people who had carried their desks over,” Cavallo-Banolek said.
Those new-Bloom pioneers were born in the 1910s, along with the students who posed for sculptures that flank the outside stairs leading to the school’s main entrance and the fresco murals that welcome people in the tower foyer.
But their visages remain, a testament to a project that drew some of the brightest artists to Chicago Heights. The fresco murals, depicting trades such as agriculture, art, industry and the relatively new field of aviation, were created by Edgar Britton, who studied with “American Gothic” painter Grant Wood.
Two of the sculptures outside, a gift from the class of ’36, were created by Felix Schlag, a German immigrant whose Thomas Jefferson design was chosen in 1938 to replace America’s buffalo nickel.
The artwork is among the elements that put Bloom on the American Institute of Architecture’s 2018 list of Illinois Great Places “as an outstanding example of art deco architecture.” The Society of Architectural Historians said the building “ranks as one of the finest examples of art deco architecture in Illinois, outside of the Loop.”
Bloom’s lofty environment left such an impression on Boswell that he contemplated a photo book about the building for more than 40 years. Now the owner of several marketing and media companies, Boswell said he assembled the 140-page book after about two months of intense work.
But it was a labor of love.
“I have been wanting to do this book since my freshman year at Bloom,” he said.
After securing some funding through the District 206 Education Foundation and benefactor and 1966 Bloom graduate Ted Wecker, Boswell engaged in “eight weeks of two hours of sleep, between business, life and working on this book.”
The result, “Bloom High School: An Art Deco Masterpiece,” is part of the hoopla celebrating the school’s 125th anniversary Sept. 19 to 21. Events include a Friday night football game at Bloom’s Sarff Field, a sold-out gala Saturday at Olympia Fields Country Club (itself a south suburban architectural gem) and a school open house Sunday open to anyone who wants to tour and reminisce in Bloom’s hallowed hallways.
Among the highlights, on the anniversary tours and in the book, is the school’s original gymnasium, Boswell said. It’s one of his favorite features in the building.
“The gym has the most architectural detail outside of the tower itself,” he said, citing octagonal ornamentation built into its exterior walls, terrazzo floors and chevrons and fluting that echo the building’s main themes. The gym’s east side exterior entrance also retains original art deco doors, which were replaced elsewhere.
It’s unusual because “gyms aren’t traditionally an ornate thing,” he said.
The building also reflects changes in society and education in the 20th century. The original gym was outfitted with a second, smaller gym for girls, “because why would girls need this much space?” Boswell said.
By the 1980s, what had been the main gym was renamed for Leila Veazey, who for decades led Bloom’s women’s athletic programs, and housed girls basketball and volleyball games as most boys sports moved into the newer field house.
“If I was on the boys basketball team at Bloom, I’d be jealous because they have the cool gym,” Boswell said.
The former, smaller “girls gym” went through several changes and is now a weight room.
Changes abound at Bloom in the wake of several expansions. One notable area is the school’s library, home of a Weber Costello globe linked to one used by President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. The library was built adjacent to the school’s exterior wall, turning the school’s outside features into interior design elements.
There are newer arts and home economics wings, as well as the massive field house just north of the original building. The addition of an elevator cut a third-floor staircase off at its midpoint.
The newer additions illustrate the special place the original building represents in architectural eras.
In one of the photos in Boswell’s book, the art deco tower looms over the newer auditorium that was added in the 1950s.
“You see the flat brick walls of the exterior of the auditorium, and how ornate the tower is. It’s a stark contrast,” he said. There’s only 26 years difference between the tower and the flat-walled auditorium.
“A building from 1999 doesn’t look that much different from a building built today. Stylistic changes and economic changes were so fast. Things changed so quickly, that when you see the two you wouldn’t think they’re only 26 years apart.”
But Bloom still retains its 1930s charm that Boswell and his fellow alumni love.
“Some things change, some things stand the test of time,” he said. “That’s life.”
Boswell’s book is available for preorders for $60, with all proceeds going to the District 206 Education Foundation, led by Boswell’s classmate and longtime friend Paul Nykaza. Those funds will go toward projects that support student activities at Bloom.
The all-volunteer foundation has supported refurbishing the choir shell in the auditorium, establishing a competitive robotics club and supplying the marching band with new instruments.
“When the director tells a student we have a new instrument for you, we see their reaction, how happy they are,” Nykaza said. “I think we’re having a good impact, and we’re always working to have even more of an impact on the students at Bloom.”
Nykaza will be at the 125th birthday festivities along with his old friend Boswell. He’s looking forward to them, because Bloom was more than just a school. It’s a school community.
“It makes me feel like I have a bigger family,” he said.
For Boswell, it’s the people and the place.
“Part of it is the uniqueness of the building. This is different than any building I’ve been in,” he said. “You walk in Bloom, and there’s so much history.”
Landmarks is a column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.