West Side Grade School
Built 1923, listed in the National Register of Historic Places 2012
301 Harmon (SW 13th) Avenue, Fort Lauderdale
Photo captions:
1927 image of playground with West Side Grade school in the background Image
Courtesy of the Broward County Historical Commission, Libraries Division
1952 image of the east elevation of the West Side Grade School Image Courtesy of the Broward County Historical Commission, Libraries Division
Harmon Monument Image
Courtesy of the Broward County Historical Commission, Libraries Division
Current view of the east elevation of the West Side Grade School Image
Courtesy of the Broward County Historical Commission, Libraries Division
The Florida real estate boom of the 1920s brought with it a dramatic surge in Broward County’s population and an accompanying need for additional schools. The Board of Public Instruction created a geography-based ward system and in 1923 built West Side Grade School in what is now known as the Sail Boat Bend neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale, the second of four ward elementary schools. West Side remained in use as an elementary school from 1923-1961, and as administrative offices for the School Board from 1961-2002. In 2009, after extensive rehabilitation, the Historic West Side Grade School building reopened as the headquarters of the Broward County Historical Commission, an agency of government through the Broward County Libraries Division.
John Morris Peterman, a prolific local architect, designed West Side Grade School in the Mediterranean Revival style, with a symmetrical façade and flat roof with parapet walls. In 1923 the Board of Public Instruction awarded a construction contract to the firm Cayot and Hart in the amount of $17,577.90 to build the West Side Grade School following Peterman’s design. Two years later, the Board purchased an additional ten acres adjoining the site which was used to add four additional classrooms and an open–air pavilion under the design of Lattener, Keil and Harper, in association with Thomas McLaughlin, for a cost of $25,688. In February of the same year, The Harmon Foundation donated $2,000 for a playground and a drinking fountain in a decorative encasement, later relocated to the east, in front of the building.
Reopened in 2009 as home to the Broward County Historical Commission, the Historic West Side Grade School houses exhibitions, hosts lectures, maintains a research library open to the public and serves as the depository of County documents and artifacts of historical interest.