The original Coit School was built set back from Coit Avenue in 1880. The lower left corner was my 2nd grade classroom with Miss. Lavender. The upper left corner was my 6th grade classroom with Mrs. Evans who donated this photo to the Grand River Valley Review.
1879 - 4th Ward Site purchased and school built for $8,900.
1880 - Building of brick, two-stories above a high stone basement, 32' x 74', four school rooms with sittings for 200 pupils, heated by stoves. Currently being erected and should be ready for occupancy by Dec 15 of the present year.
1883 - renamed Coit Avenue School
1887 - value $7,000.
1891 - Fourth Ward
1895 -The closets for this building are located in the rear of the lot.
1896 - The closets are located in the basement and supplied with city water. (Is this an error or were they removed as I sure don't remember any such thing.)
1900 - Lot 150; on Coit x 208' deep (to Dexter Place)
(My personal memory: Except it was surrounded by later additions, this building was still pretty much as originally built when I was a student. The hall was wide with a hard-wood floor. There was one narrow stairway rising straight up along the North (right) side of the hall. The stairway was dark, narrow, steep and walled-in at hand level until it was fully closed-in half-way up with dark narrow oak paneling. Only the janitor used it. It went on to the roof, possibly by a ladder. I don't remember it going down to the basement. Each room had two doors into it from the hall. The classroom doors were dark red oak with a window at adult eye-level. The stairway separated the two doors leading to the classrooms on the right or north side, basically a front door and a back door off the central hall but we only used the front door. I had always assumed that the original basement entrance must have been an exterior one as I don't remember any interior stairway going down or maybe it was blocked off or so dark I didn't notice or we just never passed it as we never used the "rear" classroom door that passed by it.
The basement was really neat. The area under this portion was white-washed stone. We would reach it via the rear addition stairway and hall. When we approached the original section, the central hall narrowed, lowered and it got much dimmer and the floor was much rougher but hard, wood? cement? hard-packed dirt? stone? We had to step into the right or south side room through a rough-hewn doorway through a stone wall and then step down onto a wood step and the floor of the room was hard-packed dirt, I think. Hey, I was only a little kid. It was great fun to go exploring. That's where the "art" room was. On the left or South side under Miss Lavender's room. I still remember modeling a letter holder out of clay, badly, I might add but I still have it. I don't remember a stairway coming down but it would have been on the opposite or north side and probably very dark so probably never noticed if it had been there.
There were no indoor bathrooms or drinking fountains in this section of the school.)
From article City Schools
From Heading History and the City of GrandRapids
From web site: MyCityofGrandRapids.info