BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

the inner city were changed to accommodate adult education.
While new schools are being built in more and more distant suburban
locations, inner city schools are empty and more and more frequently
bulldozed (Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Detroit and Boston).
81. Desegregation plans often run as counter-forces to community education
in that children are being bussed across school district boundaries
while community school programs are being set up for their families in the
neighbourhood school. Here the practical consequences of a social goal at
the national level are clearly in conflict with objectives at the local
level. Despite all efforts to desegregate, the white middle class still
moves to the suburbs.
In New York between 1974 and 1976 forty-three schools (some newly
renovated) were closed. For none of these could alternative uses be
found.
These are just a few examples chosen to demonstrate the extent of the problem
and the diversity of directions taken in various states and communities
in order to cope with it. The two following examples for the use
of surplus space, in Wharton, New Jersey, and Mount Holly, New Jersey,
provide a more in-depth analysis of districts where old school buildings
now serve a variety of community uses.
Wharton, New Jersey
82. Wharton, New Jersey is a small town of 6 000 inhabitants and 5-6
major industries of which glass and wallpaper manufacturing are the largest.
It is comprised of 1 800 families which are primarily lower middle-class
white. 850 children between 1st and 8th grade are educated in two local
elementary schools, 80 children in a private catholic school. 400 children
of high school age attend a high school outside the community.
83. Having been replaced by a new facility, the old Curtis Elementary
School, built in the 1920's and located on a hill next to the public
library, was closed and put up for sale from September 1974 to May 1975.
The Board of Education's intention was to sell it for the nominal fee of
$1 to the municipality. The municipality, however, refused to buy it.
Finally,, it went up for public auction and got the highest offer ($40 000)
from a private bidder who wanted to convert the building into apartments.
At this point, a group of citizens, supported by a survey of community
needs which they had launched to demonstrate the lack of .recreational
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