Civic Park School
Civic Park is a neighborhood on the north side of Flint, MI that was built by General Motors during and after the First World War. The explosive growth of the city as the automobile industry took hold led to a rapid expansion of its boundaries, causing housing shortages.
In 1921, Civic Park Elementary School was built. An addition was built onto the school sometime in the 1960's, which included a gymnasium. On March 18th, 1972, a major fire broke out in the school, destroying much of the interior. Some Flint residents remember "the kids in the neighborhood dancing with glee" at the thought of not having to go to school anymore, but were disappointed to learn that they would have to walk to another school. Repairs took most of the summer and fall, but by December the school was back in use. Much of the school was gutted and modernized as part of renovations.
Civic Park closed in 2009. Plans to turn it into a home for senior citizens were announced two years later, but never came to fruition. Over the summer of 2011, most of the windows were stripped out of the building by scrappers. In 2013, Shaltz Automation announced it would be buying the school and tearing it down to make way for a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, but the school remains vacant.
