100-Year Old School Houses Former Student, Parent Again

Not many buildings continue operating as working businesses or institutions 100 years after they were first built.

Crestwood Apartments, at 1000 Waukegan Road in Northbrook, is just one of those uncommon structures. And in a delicious twist, Crestwood’s different incarnations— first as an elementary and high school, then for the past 25 years as senior apartments—are tied together in a complete circle.

Jack West, 65, is apparently the only one of a small group of former Crestwood School students who went on to live at the building. Meanwhile, Gina Friend, 85, was a former Crestwood School parent who also resides in the historic structure. No special commemoration is planned yet for Crestwood’s centennial, so the memories of its history have to be mined individually from those who have seen the building from different perspectives, as West and Friend have.

Irony finally realized

 “I would have never thought of it in a million years,” says West of his return to the Crestwood building. The 62-year Northbrook resident moved in last year because it was an affordable place to live.

“That’s the way life is,” he added.  “You grow older and see how change happens.”

Friend, a 55-year Northbrook resident, was even more amazed at the fact that she and West were back in the former school halls.

“God works in strange ways,” Friend says of her nine years at Crestwood, where her daughter attended sixth and seventh grade.

After a bout with cancer in 1986, Friend had to sell her house.

“I thought I was going to die then,” she said.

About a decade later, she moved to Crestwood.

“I thought I came here to die where my kid went to school,” she said. “But I love it here. Total peace. It’s a nice place.”

From Country School To Senior Complex

With 118 units in a three-story structure, Crestwood is dramatically expanded from its school days. Two wings have been added for residents on the north side of the original school structure. One of the wings was built in a 1930s New Deal public-works project conducted to transform a modest country school into the old Northbrook High School, according Judy Hughes, president of the .

Crestwood was founded in 1901 as Shermerville School, its name a nod to the original name of Northbrook.  The school was changed to Northbrook School when the village adopted Northbrook as its name in 1923. A two-year high school was added in 1930, and the first four-year high school graduated its initial class in 1939, according to Hughes.

The high school operated until 1952, when it outgrew the building and the original Glenbrook High School was constructed. Crestwood continued to serve as an elementary school until 1979. When school children finally moved out, the building did not remain vacant for long. By 1985, the Crestwood Apartments were dedicated.

Halls Still Bring Back Memories of High School Friends

West’s memories of attending school at Crestwood are as clear as when he first absorbed them nearly six decades ago. He entered the school in 1951 and, except for one year at another local school, continued his attendance through seventh grade in 1958-59.

West recalls one unusual encounter with a real-life Fonzie that took place in the same year Henry Winkler’s TV character was being cool around a fictional Milwaukee.

“We had a guy who was a greaser, with leather jacket and jeans,” West said. “He was in my home-room class in 1958. It was a warm day in September. He went outside, and the whole school seemed to form a mob to isolate this guy.  It seemed the whole school was against him as if to say, “We don’t like you.” I was 12 years old. The kid never came back.

“I learned a lesson from that. My seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Shapiro, a heavy-set man, lectured me and said you could have made friends. I missed an opportunity at that point. I should have gone up to the young man, I could have broken the ice. That’s why it stays in my mind.”

Another memory calls to mind West’s high school flame.

“I also had a crush on Laurie Nitschke, niece of Ray Nitschke, the Green Bay Packers linebacker,” he said. “She was a musician, and was in a group with two guys.”

Local hangouts for West were Pete and John’s Barber Shop on Waukegan Road, and the soda counter at the old Walgreen’s that served as his “malt shop” in downtown Northbrook.

Showgirl becomes ‘good witch’

While West was in school, Friend had settled down to become a suburban mother after working in Chicago’s old Rush Street entertainment district, having moved to the city with her three sisters from Pennsylvania after World War II. She worked as  a “dice girl” at the old Singapore nightclub, then as a showgirl at the Latin Quarter and Chez Paree clubs.  Friend still had the performing bug when she appeared as the “good witch” at Halloween parties at Crestwood School and trick-or-treating throughout the neighborhood.

“I liked to make the kids comfortable and happy rather than scary,” she said.

Daughter Amy came to Crestwood when nearby Oak Lane School closed. “Most of the kids came here,” Friend said. 

Now Friend is back in a familiar location, living at a reduced cost. Monthly rent is just under $600. She enjoys the proximity to and other downtown stores, easily within walking distance—not to mention the memories.

“Anyone who complains here, I say, what are you talking about?” Friend said.  “To live this long to be where my kid went to school…” she trails off.