A young person we know told us recently that it felt funny to say this, but he actually wouldn’t mind being being back to school. This made us smile. Schools contain so much of our lives and our memories. Friends, teachers, the playground, your classroom. The smell of the hallways, the cafeteria, the auditorium.

So this week we’re turning back the clock on a few nearby schools and the neighborhoods that surround them.

Old Vernon School, Art Classroom, about 1915.

These buildings are like time travelers that have seen change all around them: generations of kids who’ve grown up in the hallways; houses springing up here and there; school buildings themselves changing (or, like Kennedy School, closing down altogether).

This week’s activities ask you to explore places you might think you already know everything about–the immediate vicinity of nearby schools– to see and think about change. Click below for the latest installment.

Old School