University High School

University High School Charter, commonly known as "Uni", is a public secondary school, built 1923–1924, and founded 1924, located in West Los Angeles, a district in Los Angeles, California, near the city's border with Santa Monica. University High is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The campus also holds Indian Springs Continuation High School. The school contains the Serra Springs, a sacred site of the Tongva–Gabrieleño native people and a registered California Historical Landmark. History While under construction it was known as Sawtelle High School, but it opened as Warren G. Harding High School when completed in 1924, after 29th President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923, served 1921-1923), who had recently died. The school was renamed in 1929 after the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) moved its campus from East Hollywood to Westwood, and the reputation of former President Harding had declined after the infamous Teapot Dome scandal and other situations. The name University is supposed to have originated because it became a site where teachers-in-training from nearby UCLA worked as assistant teachers/interns. The original administration building was designed by the firm Russell & Alpaugh and the construction process began in 1923. The style that was chosen recalls the Romanesque of Northern Italy and Spanish Mission style architecture. The administration building once displayed an octagonal tower and a portico, but these features were toppled in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. An original cafeteria building was located where the current cafeteria and theater stand today. Although the gymnasium and a beautiful and widely admired auditorium were condemned following the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the school's original main building from 1924 remains in use. The music building and gym (rebuilt in the early 1980s) have been scheduled to be taken down because they sit on a fault line and therefore against district policy. As of July 2010, the music building is gone.