The walls of a 99-year-old school building have started to come crashing down in what was once a historically Black neighborhood near Washington and Studemont.
Construction crews have demolished part of the old Harper School building on Center Street west of Studemont less than a year after HISD’s state-appointed Board of Managers voted to sell the abandoned property to limited liability company BKR Memorial IV. The building was constructed in 1927 and was part of a thriving Black industrial neighborhood known as Chaneyville in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to the Preservation Houston nonprofit organization.
“There’s just not much physical left of the community, so that to me makes the school even more important because it’s one of the few reminders of this place that a lot of people don’t know ever existed,” said Jim Parsons, the organization’s programs and communications director…