History
The high school was founded in 1924 under the direction of Principal Rae G. Van Cleve. Most of the original campus facilities were demolished in 1966 because they did not meet earthquake safety standards, but the historic Auditorium and its iconic Rotunda were spared by preservationists and are still in daily use. Greenway Court, originally built in 1939 as a social hall by the students at Fairfax as a class project, was also spared and was moved to its current location on Fairfax Avenue, where it now stands as a theater and has served since 1999 as the home of the Greenway Arts Alliance.
Fairfax High School has been known since the 1930s as a breeding ground for future major figures in the entertainment industry.
Former NFL official Jim Tunney served as the school's principal from 1964 to 1970.
When the 1971 Sylmar (San Fernando) earthquake struck on February 9, 1971, with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale, nearby Los Angeles High School was damaged severely and closed for repairs. Students from LA High attended Fairfax High on "double sessions," with Fairfax students using the campus from 7am-12 noon, and LA High students from 1pm-6pm.
In 2009 some territory from the Los Angeles High School attendance boundary was transferred to Fairfax High School.
Read more about this topic: Fairfax High School (Los Angeles)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)