Once upon a time, it was the Ambassador Hotel.  One of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in Los Angeles, it later became famous as the site on which Robert F. Kennedy, brother of John and Presidential hopeful, was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.  In the years after the assassination, the building’s star faded, and it has been the center of legal wrangling between the Los Angeles Unified School District (who wanted to build a school there), Donald Trump (who wanted to build the world’s tallest building on the site), and historical preservationists (who wanted to save the building).  The school district won out, and agreed to preserve some of the historic building in the new Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools building, a $578 million dollar monument to excess.

This place is more spectacle than school.  Not only does it feature marble floors and a mural of the original Ambassador Hotel, it also features a public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool, WiFi throughout the complex, and several preservation pieces from the old hotel itself (which cost $15 million dollars alone to restore).  The methane mitigation system alone cost $33 million to build!

Without a doubt, this is the nicest school in the nation and the crown jewel of the second-largest school system in the US, but when you’re $640 million dollars in debt, you’ve got a 50 percent dropout rate, and you’re home to the worst-performing schools in the world, what’s the point in building the Taj Mahal of school buildings?

Tags: Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, Los Angeles, California, Ambassador Hotel, RFK, 8 million dollar school, Los Angeles Unified School District, world’s most expensive school

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