California: The Great Wall Of Long Beach

“Good fences make good neighbors,” says a line by Robert Frost. At Long Beach’s Lindbergh Junior High School, the idea was to keep out some very bad neighbors. For years, outdoor gym classes have been endangered by bullets, bottles and even an arrow from the neighboring Carmelitos housing project. One student was shot while playing basketball in the Lindbergh school yard two years ago. A year later, gym teacher Joan Reedy had to hustle her class into the building when a bullet whizzed past her ear.

After community leaders proved unable to cool the violence, school officials decided to bulletproof the school. Last week workmen began building a 10-ft.- high, 900-ft.-long concrete wall to shield Lindbergh from the housing project. Cost: $100,000.