Lankershim Elementary School

Lankershim Elementary School. . , The Three Rs Find a NoHo Home , Public education came to North Hollywood in 1888, when school teacher Mary Crawford opened up her temporary classroom in a converted bunkhouse on Vineland Avenue. , A year later, a real, two-story schoolhouse was opened a few blocks away, on Lankershim Boulevard. It had a bell tower fitted out with a 28-inch bell to summon students from across the ranchlands. Six years later, the first graduating class received its diplomas. , That schoolhouse lasted until 1933, when it was demolished to make way for a new school. The original school bell was formally dedicated to North Hollywood's pioneers and placed on a pedestal in front of the school. On St. Patrick's Day in 1972, the circa-1889 school bell was stolen. It remains missing. (Disappointed students invariably learned that the school day can start without the clanging of a bell.) , Adults in a Schoolyard Brawl , The first recorded schoolyard fight at the 1889 school was not between children, but between two grown women. The schoolhouse was also used as a courthouse, and a local woman was convicted in a 1904 jury trial of stringing up dead chickens around her rival's house. She was fined $10. , Out in the schoolyard after the verdict, the guilty woman was setting her baby down on the ground so she could take a swing at a witness who had testified against her, when that witness, another local woman, clipped the guilty woman with an early hit. The hair-pulling contest that ensued left a hunk of fake blonde hair lying in the schoolyard. , By the following year, the town of Lankershim had a population of several hundred residents. The school's administration said it was so progressive that it kept an Edison phonograph player for educational purposes. , A New Town Needs a New School , In 1924, the school building was literally picked up and moved, back nearly 200 feet onto Bakman Avenue. It took fifty men and forty days to make the move, and it freed up frontage on Lankershim Boulevard so the central business district could grow. The new businesses also added $45,000 in sales taxes to the Board of Education coffers to be able to build the new school, which opened in 1933 on Bakman Avenue. , Among the school's earliest pupils were pioneer brothers and land developers Fred and Daniel Bakman, for whose family Bakman Avenue is named. One later student, Norma Jean Baker, went to sixth grade here, winning awards for track and field. She would go on to be known more famously as Marilyn Monroe. , In 2000, the school's crossing guard, a U.S. Air Force and Navy veteran named William Edward Hooper, was struck and killed as he helped a child across the street. The following year, a new traffic signal went up, along with a sign honoring the beloved crossing guard.