I’m here in the recesses of Keith Junior High School, in a place that I bet not many of you have ever been. This is the mechanical room, well underneath the first floor, where the original heating system still exists.
Behind me is an enormous coal boiler. Check this thing out—it’s two stories tall. Those doors up there must weigh thousands of pounds. And this hopper is where the coal would have been delivered, up on this track system, rolling through and feeding into the boiler system from above.
What makes this space even more interesting is that as newer heating systems were added over time, the old ones were never removed. They were just left in place. So you can actually see the layers of history here and guess which system came first, second, and so on. None of them are in use anymore.
The entire building now runs on electric heat, and all of the new apartments being developed will also use electric systems. But this room is a reminder of how things used to operate—large-scale, industrial, and built to last.
It’s really a fascinating snapshot of a different era, and the real centerpiece is still this massive two-story coal boiler. It’s hard not to stop and appreciate just how impressive it is.
