The school has been front and center in the news recently for two things. One very positive story has emerged: it's the school from which Kentucky basketball star Anthony Davis graduated in 2011.

It's also the school from which hip-hop start-up and college student Jeff Maldonado--who was mistaken for a rival gang member and shot dead in 2009--graduated in 2008. Recently, the school was the site of a special class and anti-violence rally in his memory, with students making a commitment to combatting all manner of violence however they can.

Before these two news items, I had always thought of Perspectives as a sort of architecturally hallowed place at State and Archer, contained within a very architecturally interesting building, designed by Ralph Johnson at Perkins + Will. To me, it was a throwback to the industrial design of the 1950s, and a building which looked like a sleek stainless steel train from that era--a fitting icon in the South Loop, which is known historically as a bastion of train stations and train tracks.

But, alas, however one sees the school--as an architectural icon, a breeding ground for a world-renowned athlete or the school from which a college student and budding hip-hop artist graduated and was killed--it's all in one's perspective.