Opened in 1928 the Thomas M. Cooley High School was an architectural masterpiece, designed in the Spanish Baroque style with orange Flemish-bond brick and ornamental terracotta features including a 1,000-seat auditorium. Enrollment quickly grew to over 3,400 students, making it one of the biggest high schools in the city.
Due to budget constraints and declining enrollment, Cooley High School was closed in 2010. Without any maintenance the building declined significantly. Vandalism became a serious problem, with graffiti appearing on the walls inside and out. Scrappers began to gut the classrooms.
In 2017 much of the auditorium had been destroyed by a fire, which had burned all of the seats down to their metal frames. Firefighters kept the fire from spreading to other parts of the building, limiting it to just the auditorium.
