When the city tears down the cement walls of the East Rock Magnet School, students will have a new home complete with park space, windows and light.
That’s what architects reported at a meeting at the K‑8 school at 133 Nash St.
The city plans to move the school community in June 2010, then demolish the school and start building a new one in the following few months. Construction is expected to take about two years.
Newman Architects unveiled the latest plans at a meeting last week of the East Rock School-Based Building Advisory Committee, a group of over 40 parents, teachers, staff, architects and neighbors who are overseeing the redo process.
The $45 million project barely escaped the axe when the mayor decided in Oct. 2008 to slow his signature $1.5 billion school construction program amid a national financial crisis. Some projects were put on hold; East Rock proceeded.
The plans were applauded by East Rock neighbors, some of whom are eager to see the concrete bunker go.
“They’ve done an exceptional job,” said East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar after the meeting ended. He said the plans address the main shortcoming of the current school: a lack of relationship to the surrounding residential area.
The existing school (pictured) was built in 1973. It is marked by large, windowless walls of concrete. The two entrances on Nash Street are set so far back from the sidewalk that visitors sometimes have a hard time figuring out where the front of the building is. (Click here for Virginia Blaisdell’s photo essay of the school.)
“Absolutely atrocious,” is how Lemar described the existing school’s design.
He called it a “1970’s‑style prison” that “turns its back on the neighborhood.”
Maxine Gilliard, who was dropping her grandson off at the school Tuesday morning, said she’s ready to see the school rebuilt like the other ones across the city.
“It’s time for a facelift,” she said.
Neighbors agreed it’s high time to fix an unwelcoming landmark that sits in a prime location, just off the Willow Street exit from I‑91, at the entrance to New Haven and East Rock.
“This is the gateway to East Rock,” said neighbor Joe Puleo. “We don’t want another concrete, brutalist monster.”
A “Community Asset”
Richard Munday, a principal of Newman Architects presented “early schematic designs” that aim to “knit the school into the community.”
Munday (pictured) said he seeks to address shortcomings of the current school — it doesn’t interact well with the neighborhood, and once you’re inside the bunker, it’s hard to get oriented.
The plans call for the school to be shifted toward Nash and Willow. The school would come closer to Nash Street, matching the front-yard setbacks of the homes across the street.
The 75,500-square-foot school would rise three stories tall. Because of the slope of the ground, the Nash Street facade would be two stories tall.
The current school suffers from poor acoustics and lighting, said school construction chief Sue Weisselberg.
The new school would address that by adding a lot more windows — both windows facing out and windows inside the school. Plans show a two-story gymnasium/cafeteria surrounded by a horseshoe of classrooms on each level. Skylights would let natural light into the large central space, as shown above. Windows in the hallways and classrooms would look out onto the southern park when possible.
Large school buses would drop off kids at a driveway behind the school (at left in photo), and parents with personal cars would drop off kids at a jug-handle driveway on Nash Street.
One problem architects had to solve was what to do with the southern border, which abuts a park space that’s home to Blake Field.
“This park is not a well-maintained public space,” Munday said. It’s overgrown and poorly lit and neighbors say they don’t feel safe going there.
Munday said his firm has found a way to increase access to the park, so that it becomes “a community asset, not just a school asset.” His plans show two new park entrances.
One entrance links the city park to a new greenspace on school premises, at the southwest corner of the school, where Mechanic Street ends (see drawing). The new set-up aims to make the city park more inviting to neighbors. The improvements will be figured into the cost of the school, Munday said.
Alderman Lemar said the city park is hard to access and has a reputation of being unsafe. He called the new plan to open it up “wonderful.”
Puleo was pleased to see another improvement at the entrance to the neighborhood, where Willow hits Mitchell Drive.
When you come off of I‑91 into East Rock, “the first thing you see is the Dumpsters,” he said. He and others pushed architects to change plans at that corner so that it becomes “welcoming” instead of “hostile.”
Newman Architects responded and hid the Dumpsters from view. The firm also added a “pedestrian safety area” on the corner of Willow and Mitchell to make it more pleasant for people who have to cross the road.
Puleo called the plans “a lot better.”
An architect in the crowd, Victor Agran, pronounced the plans “thoughtful” and “sensitive” to the surrounding neighborhood.
“I think the community’s going to be ecstatic to see this new school,” said Alderman Lemar. He said he hopes that “removing that structure will allow everyone in the community to really appreciate education that’s going on there.”
“Hopefully with this new design,” he said, “parents will start to see that there are more options than just Hooker in East Rock.”
By "pedestrian safety area," do they mean that the city will be bringing speeds on Willow down to 15 MPH (the standard in many cities worldwide), instead of the current 30-40 MPH?
The traffic is a major deterrent to walking and if that facet of the local environment were improved, it might not even be necessary to rebuild the entire school to the tune of tens of millions of dollars (rather, the existing shell could simply be retrofitted with windows, looking out on newly-planted trees and narrower, calmed streets).