Rebuilding of Temblor-Racked Van Gogh School Gets Underway

Nearly two years after Van Gogh Street Elementary school was razed due to major damage in the Northridge earthquake, beaming school district and federal officials broke ground Tuesday to rebuild it.

The 350-student school was the only one so badly damaged it was torn down after the 1994 temblor, and officials said its $6.1-million, FEMA-funded reconstruction is a sign that the quake’s ravages can be finally repaired.

“There is hope,” said Sid Thompson, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, after plunging a shovel into the soil where the school once stood. “Kennedy [High School] will follow this one.”

The 6.7-magnitude quake split the school’s playground and opened cracks in the main hallway. Inspectors concluded that the soil was insufficiently stable to support the existing structures in another quake, and the campus was razed in the summer of 1994.

Since then, Van Gogh students and staff have been housed in nearby Frost Middle School. In the fall of 1997, when the new campus is expected to be finished, only two classes of Van Gogh students will remain of those who attended class at the original campus.

Though federal, state and LAUSD officials have sniped at one another in the past about delays in coming up with money to repair local schools, they were all smiles Tuesday. They were joined by Van Gogh alumni, staff and students, with children gallivanting about the spacious playground and reminiscing about good times at a school now gone.

“I wish we were still here,” said Meghan Melby, 10, a Van Gogh fifth-grader who will graduate from the Frost campus. “I just love this school a lot better than the other school.”

Wobbling on a pair of roller blades, Meghan’s classmate Jennifer Seely added: “We have a lot of memories here.”

The two began to recall good times--scaling the wall of the girls’ restroom, racing to see who would be first into the school.

One memory was unwelcome--the condition of the school after the quake.

“The floor was, like, gross,” said Gina Soohoo, 10.

Gina is the fourth member of the Soohoo family to attend Van Gogh. Her father, Johnny Soohoo, was on hand Tuesday to celebrate the groundbreaking.

“It’s a full circle,” Soohoo said. “Now life goes back on.”

Kathryn Gray, a custodian at Van Gogh, was also looking forward to returning to the old campus. “This is part of us,” she said, as her two grandchildren, also Van Gogh students, chased each other across the playground.

Van Gogh Principal Maureen Diekmann said many are looking forward to the return.

“We have a very good situation where we are,” she said as kids scampered in the background, “but we’ll be very happy to have our big playground and auditorium back.”