John Campbell

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• MJD - i have heard those stories as well when i went to kennedy. i also got to explore the basements and see the old shooting range. did you notice all the bullet holes in the air ducts? lol
  i remember my brother telling me he had found a bunch of old nuke pamflets in the basement telling you what to do in the event of a strike. i guess they figured they're screwed anyhow because the picture on the front was just a sketch of a kid under his desk covering his head!
  LOL!!! yup, that otta do it!!! :)

• Aaron, its the old "put your head between your legs and kiss your a** goodbye!" pamphlet lol. I'm certain the duck and cover method would not protect anyone against a 200 megaton multi stage ICBM that had enough explosive force to turn this entire region into a gigantic sizzling crater... But then again, those desks were made nice and solid back then thats for sure... maybe the lead based paint....

• Also, Andrew, I was wondering if you were going to do a series about my alma mater W.D. Lowe?.

  There was a shooting range in the basement there as well. We also had a bunch of stuff from Patterson High (yearbooks, team banners, team photos, etc) in a glass case near the gym. Awesome stuff.

  I was part of the second last graduating class from that school. The Principal's office was beautiful, all oak panelled and regal looking.... Plus I'd pay 1000 dollars to get up into one of those turrets.

• It was a few years ago- possibly even ten or so, but alot of the brick was redone and fixed. That's good news because that just means that the outside structure is that much better. I grew up down the street from John Campbell and lived in the neighbourhood until I move a couple of years ago so I've always been around that school somewhat. It's true about the classrooms- they are going to be made a bit bigger by narrowing the hallways slightly. When I was in there, some of the lockers (very, very old by the way) were tipped over and lying in the hallway. There wasn't much of a wall between the lockers and the blackboards on the other side.
  I also went to Kennedy but did not get to explore anything in particular- I just didn't care about this stuff back then! If I do remember correctly, you could go to the basement via the sprial staircases in the corner turrets of the gym. Can anyone verify that? I just don't remember. A friend of mine mentioned the shooting range under the school and said the access was near one of the outside doors to the northeast parking lot where the teachers park. I would love to explore that school if I could!

• The doors at the bottom of the stairs in the turrets were usually locked up tight, but one time we got to "see" what was behind the door and all that was there was a large storage room - I think - b/c there wasn't any lights in there. I don't think that there were any entrances to the basement that I can remember since the pool was down there.

  The geography of the basement went something like this:

  In the NE corner of the school there was a janitor's closet under the stairs. Sunk in the floor was an access hatch to the "tunnel" which ran the length of the building east to west. Another "tunnel" ran perpendicular to it towards the back of the school and ended at the top of the huge fan in the shooting range (about 10 feet above the floor. This "tunnel" was between the two old classrooms in the "basement" which was about the only place I never got to see. The "tunnels" served a dual purpose: as part of the ventilation system (explaining the heavy lid on the access door and the fan) and the usual pipes and wiring for that section of the school.

  The main entrance to the real basement was under the stairs right in front of the girls' changing rooms which would be on the right side at the end of the hall going towards the gym. There was a pretty narrow stairway going down and it had several landings. I don't remember the order, but at one landing was the tunnel that ran towards the pool and ended in a pretty big room under the pool bleachers. It was full of pumps and filters for the pool. The next landing had a shower for the janitors oddly and it had a window that looked out over the shooting range. At the bottom the door opened out onto the shooting range which was the basement under the section of the the school connecting the classrooms to the gym. The ceilings at this point must've been at least 20 feet high and the hall was about 50 feet long. On the right wall was a door that we never got open and even the janitors I knew didn't know what was behind. Further down was another large room separated by a floor to ceiling fence with the same height and all the football stuff was piled high in one huge clusterf**k of a mess. Right in the middle end of the hall was the fan, an enormous motor and enormous fan that pushed air into a really big duct that actually was the end of the other tunnel I mentioned earlier. Behind the fan was another large recess where there were at least 10 filing cabinets with school records going back decades. (No peeking, even being in the basement they were locked.

  Back at the landing of the stairs, if you went to the right there was a door leading into the boiler room. Inside the doors on the right was an office of sorts. The boiler room was its own separate section of the school on the west side between the gym and the "new" addition" and didn't have anything built over it. The room itself was huge. At least 60 feet long and 40 wide. There were 4 (?) boilers there on the floor which was about 5 feet lower than where the office and entrance were. I remember something about a series of arches along the back wall low to the floor but I don't remember what was in them...anyone?

• Regarding Kennedy Collegiate and gun range. In the mid-50s a story circulated that the student cadet corps at KCI drilled with real rifles. One spring a charismatic student leader in the corps convinced his teenaged buddies that the city’s cadets should don their uniforms, shoulder their guns, and re-seize Detroit as in 1812. At the time pedestrians could cross on the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit City Hall was within marching distance . The adult commanding officers got wind of the scheme and took the rifles away. From then cadet drills were with wooden rifle forms.
  The yarn is most likely a rumour just as the story of Kennedy being a nuclear target. But, this was also a time, that every first Saturday at noon, air raid sirens were sounded as a test in Detroit and Windsorites could see the needle noses of a battery of anti-aircraft Nike missiles rise out of a bunker on Belle Isle. And that is true.

• They were still sounding the Detroit air raid sirens as recently as 2004, I'm not sure about more recently as I've been living out of the city since then.

  On a somewhat related note, there was a huge air raid siren/tower behind Prince of Wales school. I remember being in the field behind the school one Saturday with a friend and almost having a heart attack when it went off (I was about 7 or 8 at the time).

• "I believe that in this case, because the building is in reality new construction inside an exisiting building, that by removing the items, and reinstaling them they must meet current fire codes."

  Andrew - does this apply for use of these items in locations/buildings other than the school itself? I would think someone restoring an old house or other building my find a use for those doors, cabinets or other woodwork. I suppose in this case it may be too late but I'm curious about the logic.

• Thanks for your description of the spaces under Kennedy C.I, MJD. I enjoyed reading what you wrote and was trying to visualize... I remember the pool because I was on the swim team and was in there at least once a day- if not twice. I remember the stairs going down into the pool and also the middle doors between the boys and girls changing rooms which led to the pool stands. Lol, if anyone ever gets access to explore Kennedy's underground, let me know!

• I went to this school, back in the 80's. Man this brings back memories!
  *tear*