Milwaukee Public Schools is moving forward with plans to demolish the 109-year-old Lincoln Avenue School, months after a five-alarm fire tore through the historic building on the city's south side in June.
MPS is holding two sessions at the Mitchell Street Library — one at noon and the other at 4:30 p.m. The sessions are intended to keep the community informed about the demolition and what comes next for the beloved school.
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After the fire, the city declared the building structurally unsound and said it needs to be torn down. The district says demolition is expected to begin this month. The district told me it plans to preserve some bricks and the outside of the school for memorial use before it comes down.
For community members like Melody Lawrence, the school's legacy is personal. She attended Lincoln Avenue School, as did other members of her family.
"My granddaughter when it was burning, we went in the backyard. We thought it was raining and it wasn't raining. It was the flakes coming down from the ashes, so my granddaughter put them all inside of a jar and now she has a jar full of the ashes from Lincoln Avenue School on her bed dresser," Lawrence said.
Lawrence's granddaughter now attends Pulaski High School, following in the footsteps of Lawrence and other members of her family. The school means a lot to her, which is why she plans to attend one of two information sessions to learn more about the demolition and what comes next.
"It's important to me. It was important to her. She says she can't wait till we get to go back to my school. My school. This is our school. Lincoln Avenue is our community. And I will do everything I can to make sure that it stays that way," Lawrence said.
Travis Hope, who also attended Lincoln Avenue when he was young and later volunteered his time there, is attending the community information session to learn more about the building's demolition. He hopes another school is built right in the south side community.
"The school is important and it should be a school. It should continue to be a neighborhood school in the neighborhood of Lincoln Village on 18th and Lincoln," Hope said.
"Every kid, everybody I talked to, they wanna come back here to 18th and Lincoln so it should be. we need a viable place in the neighborhood. we need this to be a school," Hope said.
MPS is holding two sessions at the Mitchell Street Library — one at noon and the other at 4:30 p.m. The sessions are intended to keep the community informed about the demolition and what comes next for the beloved school.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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