West End School
In April 1908, Robinson visited the site of a new school on a hillside overlooking Duke Street extended, then just west of the Alexandria, Va., city limits. He designed a two-story brick structure with three classrooms, an auditorium and a principal’s office that cost $9,000 to build. Unlike Robinson’s other Northern Virginia schools, the West End School had no central hallway or bell tower but did have a low hipped roof and window banks on each floor separated by panels of concrete.
In 1915, Alexandria annexed land from Fairfax, including the West End School property. To accommodate an increase in the student population, either the auditorium or office was adapted into another classroom in the early 1920s. Around this time, construction began on the George Washington Masonic Memorial just north of the school and visible in the photo to upper right. In 1923, the Alexandria agreed to sell the school property to the memorial association for just over $7,000, with the condition that Alexandria could use the school for two more years. The West End School remained open during much of the memorial construction but closed around 1929 and was demolished in the early 1930s.