Cypress Grove High School

 

Cypress Grove High School

Cypress Grove High is a sprawling, timeworn school in the Garden District of New Orleans. The building itself is a patchwork of old and new:

• The original redbrick main hall dates back to the early 1900s, its architecture somewhere between elegant and oppressive.

• Over the decades, additional wings and portable classrooms were grafted on to handle overcrowding, giving the place a maze-like layout nobody fully understands.

• The ceilings in some corridors are stained from ancient leaks.

• The old gym has been condemned “pending renovations” for as long as anyone can remember, its doors chained shut and the windows blacked out.

• Faded murals in the cafeteria depict idealized, smiling students that no one recognizes anymore.

During daylight, Cypress Grove looks like any other underfunded public high school:

• Lockers jammed with textbooks and half-finished art projects.

• Posters peeling off the walls—school spirit campaigns, anti-drug PSAs, dance announcements.

• A few battered vending machines humming under the fluorescent lights.

But when the sun sets, the building feels different. The echo of footsteps lasts a little too long. The air grows still. The security guards never stay more than a few hours before retreating to their cars.

Rumors among the students are constant:

• It’s cursed.

• It was built on a battlefield.

• A whole class disappeared in the 80s.

• If you go into the old gym at night, you won’t come out.

Teachers dismiss the stories as superstition. But almost everyone at Cypress Grove has at least one tale of something strange happening—something they can’t quite explain.