DuPont Manual High School - Building and Campus

Building and Campus

Manual classrooms and offices are located in three buildings spread over two city blocks. The main building was originally called Reuben Post Halleck Hall and was home to the Louisville Girls High School before it merged with Manual. The Gothic-style building was completed in 1934 at a cost of $1.1 million. The 9-acre (36,000 m2) tract it was built on had previously been the site of the old Masonic Widows and Orphans Home.

In 1967 an urban renewal program demolished a residential block east of the main building to create a running track and various athletic fields. The project doubled Manual's campus to its modern size of 17 acres (69,000 m2). This was a part of a larger city-funded effort which created Noe Middle School north of Manual and increased the size of the University of Louisville campus, which was originally touted as a plan to create a continuous chain of schools over many blocks. Manual even became a home for two of the university's women's athletic teams. In the 1980s, the U of L women's basketball team used Manual's gym as a part-time home, playing a total of 40 games in eight seasons there. The U of L volleyball team used the Manual gym as its primary home from 1977 through 1990, after which the team moved into the newly-built Cardinal Arena on its own campus. In 1992, Manual began a $3.5 million renovation of the main building which included a new roof and a glass-enclosed cafeteria for juniors and seniors.

The Youth Performing Arts School has its own building a half-block from Manual's main building. It was completed in 1978 at a cost of $1.5 million as the final stage of the same plan that expanded Manual's campus and built Noe. Noe had been built without an auditorium in anticipation of a theater-oriented school being built on site. The YPAS building includes production facilities, a costume shop and a 886-seat proscenium-style theater. The YPAS building did not contain extensive classroom space, however, and for many years teachers conducted YPAS classes in hallways and on loading docks if other space wasn't available. Since 1993, YPAS has used an adjacent facility, built in 1899 and formerly home to Cochran Elementary, as an annex.