In a letter in the TAB, William E. Roesner, a member Newton Historical Commission, writes about a shameful “cultural bias of this city and its elected officials”….
It seems we will continue to tear down and throw away venerable brick school buildings (found to be ‘preferably preserved’ by the Newton Historical Commission) in favor of glossy new and expensive replacements. This is all to cover up a disgraceful lack of maintenance and to promote ‘modern’ (elitist?) and self-aggrandizing educational programs that these buildings, after hundreds of years of success, can somehow no longer be adapted to accommodate.
I understand renovation however Angier is nearly 100 years old! If he wants the school he should work In the building with the 400 kids. It needs to be replaced!
I am a parent of an Angier student…..it needs to be demolished! Or Mr. Roesner can move the building to his lot and renovate it.
I love in a house that was built in 1926 and we renovated but we did not demolish the whole house. I think some things are worth preserving…..Angier is NOt one of them.
Interesting article on this theme in today’s Ideas section: http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/12/08/can-buildings-too-young-save/IaHeHvatkjaeqrgPbSsp2K/story.html
The point of the article is that not all buildings can or should be saved, and it a matter of subjective taste what should be preserved and what should be replaced.
Emily – thanks for posting this. I thought the article was generally good, but ignored one important aspect of what should be saved – how well it works for the people who spend time in the building. Two of the buildings discussed (including Boston City Hall) have the problem of not working well as interior spaces, and that should be an important criterion.
I have no quarrel with the Historic Commission finding Zervas to be preferably preserved, whether I agree with them or not. There are many organizations within the city that have a specific role and the job of Newton’s leadership is to factor these organizations’ work into policy and planning.
I liken this to the advocacy role of an attorney. An attorney’s job is to make the strongest case possible for their client, for the judge or jury to weigh along with all of the other considerations they have gathered.
The HC is charged with “the preservation, promotion and development of the historical or archaeological assets of the City”. They have at their disposal a single tool, the demolition delay, to slow the pace of change and to encourage others to consider the value of the historic infrastructure.
The City can chose to consider the position of the HC or not (pending a one-year delay). But doesn’t our built environment deserve an advocate?
Steve: Up to a point. However, in many cases the the Historical Commission is just another bureaucratic hurdle that has to be overcome before getting a project underway.
In the case of the schools that the HC found “preferably preserved,” you know that their findings mean nothing, as the planning horizon for rebuilding them is far longer than the 12 months demolition delay. So why bother, if the HC is just going to be ignored?
But Robert, the bureaucratic hurdle is doing just what it is supposed to do — slow down wholesale change so the property owner will be incentivised to respect physical aspect’s of a building’s history. I suspect we’ve both seen instances where the demolition delay is a brutally crude tool for this purpose, but I’ve also worked on projects where the threat of delay raised awareness and resulted in subtle modifications to the owner’s and HC’s satisfaction.
In the case of school buildings, you are right that a delay may have no meaningful impact, but on the other hand we’ve just spent more time complaining and responding than the City and HC spent combined reviewing and disposing of this issue. (Only a slight exaggeration!)
Can someone please share what is so historically significant about the current building called the Zervas School has? From face value, it has none of the beauty of other school buildings that Newton has turned into residential housing such as: The Hyde School, Warren Jr High, Weeks Jr High and the former Peirce School. I just don’t see it.
From my read of his letter, William Roesner isn’t claiming historical significance of the Zervas building. He’s saying we have a general bias towards expensive rebuilding rather than maintaining and adapting. If Newton’s infrastructure needs were all set and we had hundreds of millions of dollars sitting around collecting interest, it would be fine to rebuild inadequate, unattractive school buildings.
The three reasons I hear for rebuilding are age, conditions and overcrowding. 1) I don’t find the age of a building to be a compelling reason to tear it down. By that argument, Buckingham Palace and Notre Dame have got to go. 2) Poor conditions can be remedied by renovation and repairs. Zervas can be fixed. My daughter attends that school and it’s basically fine for its purpose. Yes the building leaks – that can be repaired. 3) Overcrowding can be fixed by replacing neighborhood schools that were sold by either buying buildings back (Hyde) or building a new building (Upper Falls). It’s a lot less expensive than rebuilding and the end result is much more desirable in terms of traffic, class sizes and neighborhood.
My point is that that we do not think it necessary to spend adequately on public building maintenance and adequate physical plant.Take the School board video tour of the 3 schools currently slated for demolition. It’s well documented by the Superintendent and the schools 3 principals perfectly. Leaking roofs, poorly repaired plumbing, paint peeling and a horrible lack of storage space resulting in corridors being restricted for circulation and staff put up in closets.
The message to me is why has there been a long term policy of short changing the bricks and mortar aspects of our schools. We have to spend money on more than teachers salaries if we expect to provide quality education for our kids.
Now we have to buy 3 new buildings spending a good hundred million dollars to make up for short sited maintenance and mismanagement.