Preserving the West Baltimore school house Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall attended

The Rev. Al Hathaway breaks into a broad smile when he leads an informal tour of his $14 million project, the painstaking restoration of the West Baltimore public school where Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was a student from 1914 to 1921.

“So many people thought I had gone off the rails,” Hathaway said of his doubters.

Now, months into a project where construction began in 2022, the proof is in the details of what is named the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center.

By a fluke, the school was saved when it ceased functioning academically and went on to house the city-sponsored Upton Cultural and Arts Center. Workers nailed plaster board over blackboards and partitions, unintentionally preserving the school’s walls and wood fittings.

As a school built in 1877, its classrooms were divided by wooden partitions holding glass panels. The partitions, made like enormous windows, could be raised and lowered using chains and heavy sash weights. By a miracle, they survived and have been brought back to their original sheen and working condition.

“Look at that glass. It’s wavy,” Hathaway said of his precious find that somehow escaped shattering over the past 150 years.

The original paint tones are back too. Research showed the color scheme was a light powder blue and gray. New restrooms have hexagonal tile floors and reproduction ceramic tiles. There is also an elevator, a bike storage room and showers.

The school, built in the era when sunlight was the principal means of lighting the classrooms, has large windows, now carefully restored with their counterbalance system of chains and lead weights.

He’s proud of the school’s second floor too. Carpenters recently installed a new oak floor to replace the one that was damaged in a 2015 fire.

Hathaway says it took 33 different contracting firms to unravel how to bring his project to near completion and be on schedule for an unveiling July 2, 2024, Thurgood Marshall’s birthday.

Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore and successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education case that was a starting point to end racially segregated education in the U.S. President Lyndon Johnson named him to the Supreme Court in 1967.

Generations of Upton students knew their school as the Henry Highland Garnet School, or PS No. 103. The building was the work of architect George Frederick, the architect of Baltimore’s City Hall and a version of Baltimore City College, then located on North Howard Street.

It was once an educational centerpiece within the historic African American neighborhood of Upton. Students who graduated from its eighth grade often went to Frederick Douglass High School, then one of the city’s top schools.

When the school opened its doors in 1877, it was known as the Male and Female Grammar School No. 6, with separate boys and girls principals.

The city did not spare the budget. Built under the administration of Mayor Ferdinand C. Latrobe, it was trimmed with Baltimore County limestone and filled with construction materials designed to last.

As originally constructed, the school served the white population, often of German ancestry. By 1910, Baltimore’s Black community was growing and moving into homes along Druid Hill Avenue and Division Street.

School No. 103 became racially segregated and its name was changed to reflect community heritage. The school was named for Henry Highland Garnet, who was born enslaved in Kent County and went on to be a minister and educator.

The school’s granite front steps at 1315 Division Street sit just north of the Marshall family grocery store (razed for a playground) at the intersection of Lanvale Street. The Marshall family resided on Division, three blocks north.

Hathaway is president and chief executive officer of the Beloved Community Services Corp., an organization leading other neighborhood restorations, including the homes of civil rights activists Clarence and Juanita Jackson Mitchell on Druid Hill Avenue.

Hathaway also acquired the imposing Chernock Fire Proof Storage building, an early public storage building that still operates as it has since about 1900.

Adjacent to the school is the imposing Bethel AME Church. Other neighborhood landmarks include the former Booker T. Washington School at McCulloh Street and West Lafayette Avenue.