When you first arrive at 3939 Tracy Street, there’s something subtly striking about it. The structure doesn’t resemble the majority of Los Angeles public schools. It simply doesn’t resemble most buildings in Los Angeles. The Collegiate Gothic main building, which has arched windows, stone-cut details, and an architectural weight that suggests permanence, is situated in the Los Feliz neighborhood as though it were transported from a more deliberate and older period of American institution-building. It was designed by George M. Lindsey in 1930, and when it first opened on January 26, 1931, with about 1,200 students strolling through those halls, it seemed destined to endure.
A public school is John Marshall High School. It is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District and serves students in grades nine through twelve. Approximately 2,000 students from a variety of neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Silver Lake, East Hollywood, and Atwater Village—a cross-section of one of the world’s most complex cities—enter its doors. Marshall’s texture is hard to replicate just because of that geographic mix. It cannot be duplicated by policy. It simply builds up over many years.
During that first semester in 1931, faculty and students worked together to choose the school’s motto, Veritas Vincit, which means “Truth Conquers” in Latin. It didn’t come from a district office. There’s something there that is worth stopping for. A school motto that is selected by the actual occupants of the building typically has a deeper meaning than one that is assigned from above. The scales of justice and an open book are carried by the seal. Two shades of blue were selected as the official colors because they stand for truth. It’s possible that someone in 1931 was concerned enough about symbolism to carefully consider that, and that concern set a tone that may still be present in Marshall’s institutional DNA.
The amount of activity occurring on the inside is perhaps less evident from the outside. The School for Environmental Studies, the Performing Arts Academy, the Artistic Vision Academy, the STARS Academy, the Renaissance Academy, the Social Justice Academy, and other Small Learning Communities are housed at Marshall.
Additionally, there is a Gifted/High Ability Magnet program and a School for Advanced Studies. That’s an ambitious internal architecture for a public school with just over 100 teachers. It’s more difficult to determine whether all students gain equally from these arrangements, and it’s still unclear how resources actually distribute among programs.
It’s interesting to learn about the school’s survival story. A number of structures were condemned following the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. The cafeteria was demolished. However, the main Gothic structure that gives Marshall the appearance of a small college was also on the verge of disappearing. Under the name “Citizens to Save Marshall,” a group of locals—actors, really—organized and vigorously campaigned to alter what appeared to be an inevitable conclusion. Classes were relocated to makeshift bungalows while the building was closed in 1975 for structural reinforcement. The renovated main building reopened in September 1980. It’s difficult to ignore the fact that neighbors, not developers or administrators, were the ones most committed to keeping that school intact.
Marshall’s athletic past also carries some pride. Jerry Simon broke the Los Angeles City record in 1986 when he scored 69 points in a single basketball game. 98 to 61 was his team’s victory. That kind of figure endures in local sports memory in the same way that some records do, not because they are inevitably going to be broken but rather because they accurately depict a particular period and location.
The school bears the name of John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, with a calm assurance. In the Senior Court is a bust of Marshall. The Barrister is the mascot. These aren’t random decisions; rather, they represent a school that has continuously positioned itself around the notion that civic engagement and education are intertwined. It’s another matter entirely whether today’s students physically experience that connection or just pass the bust on their way to class. However, the framework is in place and has been for almost a century.
