Camino Nuevo Charter Academy Inaugurates New Byzantine-Latino Quarter School

On February 19, 2013, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy inaugurated the Jane B. Eisner School in the renovated Pacific Bell Building at 2755 W. 15th Street (by Normandie and Pico) in the historic Byzantine-Latino Quarter of Los Angeles.

April Jane B. Eisner  
The School will serve 270 - 6th and 8th graders who have graduated from Camino's nearby K-5 elementary school. It will also serve as a shared community space in keeping with the vision of the Byzantine-Latino Quarter Foundation who had purchased the building in 2004 with the intention of turning it into a community center. They eventually gifted the building to the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy.


The school was funded primarily by the Eisner Foundation, established by Jane and Michael Eisner (former chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company).


Concerned with the physical and emotional vulnerability, extreme poverty, minimal access to the arts, lack of
advocacy on their behalf, and general powerlessness of underserved children and seniors in Southern California, the Eisner Foundation is committed to improving their lives.


Frederick Fisher and Partners led the Adaptive Reuse Project. “We needed to adapt [The Pacific Bell Building] to its new purpose, without diminishing or damaging its historic features and quality....The idea of a collage inspired the interior aesthetic, in which we simply let the design elements collide. All of this gives the school a lively, robust, loft-like character,” said Frederick Fisher, principal of Frederick Fisher and Partners.


April Michael EisnerThe Building’s transformation from an early 20th century telephone truck maintenance facility to a school which meets the 21st century educational needs of an underserved population, is not only a remarkable example of the renovation and rehabilitation of a Los Angeles cultural monument but also a welcome addition to the social history of Mid-City L.A.


Photo above: Jane B. Eisner (right) addresses well wishers at the inauguration. Photo left: Michael Eisner and Ana Ponce, chief Executive Officer of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy

Photos by Dawn Kirkpatrick

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Established in August of 2008 by writerartist Dianne V. Lawrence, The Neighborhood News covers the events, people, history, politics and historic architecture of communities throughout the Mid-City and West Adams area in Los Angeles Council District 10.

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