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2 minutes reading time (388 words)

Keep AHS facade, green, resident tells state (photo link added)

Schools Schools Schools Schools Film

Carl Wagner

Friday, 24 August 2018

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UPDATED, Aug. 24: Carl Wagner of Arlington wrote the following letter dated July 11 to Jack McCarthy, executive director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority:

Recently the Arlington School Committee selected a preliminary design for the rebuilding of Arlington High School. I and many other Arlington residents have concerns that the design will destroy a historic statehouse-like façade and a parklike green space in front of the proposed structures. I ask the MSBA to insist on preservation of the main tower/façade and the green space leading to it before you approve funds to help with the nearly $300 million project.

4 photos accompanying letter

Arlington’s residents broadly support rebuilding our high school. I attended in the 1980s and my daughter has just graduated from this public school system. AHS is a place of great students, teachers and administrators -- and it does need action.

In order to get AHS ‘on the cheap’ and to possibly avoid temporary classrooms, the current plan is to build over the open space and to gut history. At one place, the structures will be only 20 feet away from the sidewalks and could lead to crowds forced out onto busy Mass. Ave. However, it is the loss of our town’s landmark structure and its park setback that should most concern us. The “Bulfinch” classic façade is even the centerpiece on the project’s public website: ahsbuilding.org.

Our great buildings in Arlington are not so many: the Robbins Library, the Town Hall and our firehouse come first to mind. But chief among the great spaces is AHS. It reminds you of the Boston State House. It is the brick and white trim of Harvard and Tufts and offers the historic charm of old New England.

Classic structures are disappearing, and precious beautiful open spaces being lost forever in towns around our state. I fear because of these losses, Arlington’s voters will be less likely support our override at the ballot box and in Town Meeting next year.

A great AHS can go up -- but it should be behind the historic façade and existing open space. Thank you for the work that you and the MSBA do and for supporting the students, citizens and institutions of Arlington, Massachusetts.

This viewpoint was published Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018, and updated Aug. 24, to add a link to photos.

Tags:

MSBA Arlington High School AHS Rebuilding Project Open Space and Historic Façade Concerns

Comments

Guest - Martin Dunford on Wednesday, 15 August 2018 13:38

I wholeheartedly agree with article writer

Great and much needed article.

Nature and beauty inspire and enhance learning and the experience of attending any school or college. High school students all over the country struggle with the demands of learning and coming of age. They need somewhere to step away and reflect awhile, to talk with friends, to dream a little and let their imagination roam free. The green space provides this.

The high school is one of the town’s more elegant buildings. Beauty inspires and informs many fields of study from the visual arts to architecture and design and beyond. The green space in front is a little oasis on an ever encroaching desert of concrete and tarmacadam. I would hate to see it go, tossed on the heap of misguided progress that only ever measures success by mere numbers and statistics and ignores the huge and vital tapestry of all that it takes to be civilized and human.

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Guest - Tyler Patrick on Monday, 13 August 2018 20:08

Mr. Wagner Does Not Speak for Me or Our Students

This letter writer is terribly uniformed. The current design preserves usable green space BEHIND the school rather than a vacant wasteland nobody uses IN FRONT of the school. I think Mr. Wagner forgets that it’s what is inside the school that counts and limiting that to which you can do by preserving some columns would be the tail wagging the dog.

I hope whomever reads this letter from the MSBA realizes this view represents an isolated subset of the Arlington population. As a parent of two young school-aged children, how dare he jeopardize the quality of my kids’ education by appealing to the MSBA with some ridiculous notion of Ye Olde New England that has nothing to do with the educational facilities our kids need.

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