07/27/11

 

Today's pictures were taken in the new building so that you can see what New Woodward looks like. There is nothing left of our WHS site to photograph. It's all dirt, dust, chunks of stubborn concrete foundation, and lots of big, scary equipment prepping the site for the football field and bleachers to be built. Pictures will be taken of the completed football field and bleachers - some months from now.

 

Before I forget, I meant this paragraph to be the text in the first narrative about the auditorium picture showing the grid and light fixtures, etc.: The pictures of the gaping maw that was Woodward’s stage, its body the great auditorium ripped away, its skeleton-like grid, its viscera of Klieg lights, cables, and pulleys, exposed to the air as if it were the carcass of a beast torn open by some unspeakable, ravenous monster, are all that remain, for a too short time, to remind us of the edifice that once played an important part of our young lives. Good, bad, indifferent.

 

I was reminded of it by a comment by the demolition crew chief who, when asked today about the strangest thing that was uncovered during the demolition, told me that it was a steel beam, one solid, single unit 70 feet long, that spanned and formed the entry into the main auditorium. A 70 footer is, apparently, not a common building component, and it must made quite an impression on the crew. As the gentleman told me last week: That 1953 building was made to not be demolished. If the strangest thing that has been uncovered to date is only a 70' steel beam, I am amazed ... no residual students?, teachers?, or administrators? No petrified Meridian Room cooks or leftovers? Nothing of a curious nature?

 

Has anyone calculated the approximate tonnage of the debris hauled to the landfill, yet? Or the number of feathers ...?

 

Which brings up an interesting thing (at least to me): I have witnessed the entire life cycle of the (our) WHS building ... from its construction which began about 1951 to its completion in 1953 when  it opened for business; its North wing addition a few years later, and - now - its destruction. Admittedly my memory of the original construction is less sharp than that of the North addition built some years later, but it actually exists. My family frequently traveled Reading Road from Avondale to Roselawn to visit relatives during that time period. I remember the groundbreaking and construction of Swifton Shopping Center, starting around 1954. It opened in 1956. It had a 10,000 person capacity bomb shelter in its lower level! Does anyone remember the Guided Missile that was brought to WHS for display?

 

I was able to roam the halls and enter into a classroom the new building thanks to Mr. Kevin Rogers, the campus' treasurer. There is no auditorium, no lunchroom - only a voluminous common area of about 8,000 square feet - which is the main entry area that faces the Reading Road and Seymour Ave. intersection. The common area has a large stage (pictured) and it also serves as the lunchroom. Prominent in the lobby is the Woodward Museum. It is a room contained with a semi-circular glass wall that is immediately visible to all who enter the building's main entrance. The building's hallways are of plasterboard, not fire-brick or construction block. The demo chief told me that new school buildings are designed to last for 50 years. There was no age-and-out parameter put on the building we were ensconced in.

 

As I walked to my car after taking the pictures in the new building, I am sure that I heard in the breeze the Showcase anthem: "Woodward has done  it again ..."; a  beautiful Cello solo (Ron Crutcher, '65); a Clarinet solo (Richard Stoltzman, '60); Stirring marching band music and cheerleaders chanting in unison some encouraging words; "... 16, 54, 22 ... HIKE!"; "Good morning, here are the morning announcements ..."; "Suture, nurse! ... Suture self, Doctor" (a line from a faculty skit); "... and you, young man, have a forty-five minute detention ..."; And the reassuring Tick-Tock of the wonderful Grandfather Clock, with the Sun, Moon, and Stars complication, that stood proudly in Mr. Wingard's outer office. (Of note: that clock is not in the new building's museum ... does anyone know if it was Mr. Wingard's personal property?); And the exhaust note of Mr. Wingard's new Corvette as he traversed the front circle into retirement.

 

It is said that buildings and sites hold on to energy and that that energy never fully disapppears ... our voices and thoughts, being of energy, are in the ether of that site. We only have to listen carefully ... we will hear them ... we will feel them.

 

That's all for now, folks ...

 

Dan Rosenfield