Mount Carmel Senior High (LA): The Rise and Fall of a Historic High School in South Los Angeles
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 июн 2024
- Near the intersection of Hoover and 70th streets in South Los Angeles you’ll find a sizable park and community center. Yet, the only thing bigger than the park is the site’s incredible history as Mount Carmel High School, a top-performing secondary school throughout the late 1930s to the mid 1970s in South LA. What happened to this school? And how did it become decimated to a site.
Want to learn more? Check out the full article on The South LA Recap website - southlarecap.com/2023/03/05/m...
More information on the Rock & Roll High School movie that was filmed at Mount Carmel High School in South Los Angeles - Rock & Roll High School - www.lamag.com/culturefiles/ro...
More information on the Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument process - planning.lacity.org/odocument...
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:07 Building Mount Carmel High School
3:49 Mount Carmel's Swift Decline
5:13 Post Mount Carmel High School
Let's connect
Support this channel by becoming a member. Learn more -
/ @southlarecap
Let's Connect
southlarecap.com/
/ southlarecap
Newsletter Sign-Up - southlarecap.com/newsletter/
Have you ever heard of Mount Carmel High School?
I've seen the park did not know it was a H/S, yet it makes sense given the faith dome was originally a Pepperdine campus ?
@@atWay. yep! That’s right. Pepperdine moved sometime in the 70s to their current Malibu campus.
Southwest LA was a different world before the 80s!
@@SouthLARecap Thumbs up in advance if you do a video on that 👍
@@atWay. you bet!
Can you make a video about the westmont neighborhood please 🙏🏼
After the Watts riots, It appears that Mt. Carmel school officials were also part of the White Flight in South LA, even though they denied any wrong doing. Seemingly, community members and parents tried to keep the school opened, to no avail they still closed the school. This school was a bright spot on Hoover street. Its unfortunate that school officials did not see the value in educating a "few" black students . Thank you for sharing another great lesson about the historic of South Los Angles. #ABeautifulCity
Mt. Carmel had THE best school dances ever….and the boys had the best afros. Very fond memories….
This is so cool! Are there any details you can share about the dances for viewers who come across this video later?
@@SouthLARecap Wow, thanks for asking!
Well, I was 14 at the time (60’s now). What stands out to me was that there were super cute Black boys, and everyone was dressed just like what you saw on the early days of “Soul Train.” The music was 60’s and 70’s R&B and super loud, lights were really low, and there was a little “whacky tobacky” here and there. All the girls were from St. Mary’s Academy, St. Michael’s and Regina Chealey (sp?), the local all-girls Catholic High Schools. If the dance started at 8PM, we were there by 8:01, because we didn’t want to miss a thing. The girls would wait for boys to ask them to dance. In those days boys asked, and the girls said yes or no. While we waited we either sat in folding chairs placed around the edges of the dance floor, or we stood on the dance floor in small circles with our classmates from our schools. I remember once a boy came over to where we were seated, and he went down the line, asking 12 girl to dance and every girl said no! Needless to say no other boy came over to ask us to dance the rest of that night, after watching us humiliate their friend!! (Lesson learned.). The really best thing about those dances was seeing the kids you went to school with from 1st grade through 8th grade. After graduation, everyone went their separate ways. Seeing each other again at the school dances at Mt. Carmel would always feel like a reunion of sorts. When Mt. Carmel closed and the boys switched to new schools, we lost contact with the boys who attended our local elementary schools. They ended up far away at Junípero Serra High School in Gardena or Daniel Murphy in the Fairfax District (another all boys Catholic high school that closed). Some even went as far away as Verbum Dei in Watts, but those schools were not in proximity to where our parents wanted to drive.
I’ll never forget those days of innocence…..sadly it’s something kids of today don’t get to experience.
@@zzzzz8215 this is such a cool recount! Thanks so much for sharing us Z ZZZZ! It’s memories and moments like the ones that you shared that can be lost so easily when there isn’t preservation.
It’s interesting that you mentioned all the boys went their separate ways. When Mount Carmel closed in 1976, the board didn’t put forth a recommendation of where parents should send students because the board felt the local options, including Verbum Dei didn’t live up to the academic standard of Mount Carmel. Regardless of their thoughts, the decision to close the school severely impacted families.
Anyway, thanks so much for sharing your experience with the school! I hope readers find it just as helpful and vivid as I have!
Excellent video. I loved it. I'm class of 1965. I grew up two blocks from MCHS. I was blow away to see my basketball picture in the video. OMG ! Thanks very much.
Glad I could share this with you! The yearbooks really help bring the story-your story-to life!
I went to one or two swim meets there 1959 and 1960 representing Dorsey high. Being such a small school, they didn't offer much competition to us. I was also a manager on our Dorsey basketball team and seem to recall keeping stats at a couple games there. Same years 1959 and 1960. My best friend was also on the diving team and I recall he did an epic backflop at Mount Carmel during a dive attempt.
Wow, they showed the page of the year book I was in.
I frequented that park for yeeeears! My aunt lives on 66th Hoover and we always walked up there to play, for dances, summer programs. I never knew it was a high school
We love your channel!! Great, underrepresented content topics. Loved the video about the gated alleys. Our dad lives on 59th and Normandie so this hit home for us. Love this… this is hyper local coverage
Thank you, Christa! Messages like this mean a lot! I’m just glad it’s helpful. There’s still a lot more on the way!
@@SouthLARecap glad to support!👏🏽 keep growing your channel!
That was very interesting, I never knew that school was there. I went to Bret Harte on south Hoover, for one semester. I transferred in 1963 to Audubon Middle School.
I love your stories. Very well done.👍
@cynbail4950 Thank you! I’m really glad that you enjoyed it! Notes like these really mean a lot to me in this work!
Again, I just love your videos: your research, your production values. If you don't mind me saying, a theme I see in several of your stories: Hope > Joy > Pathos > Hope.
Hi, Chris! Thanks you so much for this! And yes, I felt this story structure is representative of my thoughts toward the region. I’m hopeful that starting more conversations about the region’s history can build more path toward progress and pride within the community. But this starts with recognizing the good, the bad, and the potential.
Growing up, my Grandmother reminded me that you need to know yourself through your history. This work, I like to think, stems from that thought. I learn more about where I was born, and I can help strengthen the perception of the past others-born in the region or not.
But again, thanks for tuning in! I’m glad I can offer value to you!
I lived right across the street for years. I can remember walking into the gym one day and meeting actor, Gabriel Kaplan from Welcome Back Kotter. I can’t at the moment recall what movie was being filmed there, but I can find it. I believe it was some sports themed comedy.
Really interesting! It looks like the school had an open campus. Are there any distinct features you remember about the school that you’d like to share with anyone who comes across this comment?
@@SouthLARecap it’s hard to say, my memory is starting to fade a little, but although there was fencing around the entire perimeter, there were open gates and a field of grass to play on, if I remember right. I lived in an apartment at the corner of 71st and Menlo through part of elementary school until my transition to junior high. It was in Bethune’s zone, but my mother didn’t want me going there. We’d move west to Inglewood around 78. To add, I used to play down the street at St. Raphael’s on the south playground mostly. Grandmother lived directly across the street.
Thank you for the history, I have been living across the street all my life literally since I was born, I always heard stories of there being a swimming pool but now I see it was a fact, I am still there and am very proud of the history thank you for sharing. I have never moved .....
I’m really glad that I could share this with you. The school and the community have an incredible history, and I hope that you can share this with others!
Mount Carmel instructors created an environment to shape and maintain excellence in academic achievement. Many students continued with undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Another amazing video bro! Always look forward to the next one!
Thanks, man! I really appreciate it!
Some of my friends older brothers or sisters went to Mount Carmel. I went to a catholic elementary school in South LA St. John Evangelist in 1978, we would practice basketball in the Mount Carmel gym a lot.
YES..MT. CARMEL WAS A VERY "PRESTIGIOUS" SCHOOL TO ATTEND! MY FORMER HUSBAND ATTENDED THIS SCHOOL!
Long Live Riff Randall!