 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Old arch will help Gulfport recall school's past
By AMY WIMMER, Times Staff Writer GULFPORT -- Michael Yakes remembers Parent-Teacher Association cake walks at Gulfport Elementary School. He remembers Halloween parties and the teachers who guided him through his first six years of school. "Everything I ever needed to know," Yakes likes to say, "I learned at Gulfport Elementary." So about four years ago, when the School Board's attention turned toward demolishing 1920s-era Gulfport Elementary and replacing it with a modern school that looked like nine other elementary schools in the county, Yakes and other Gulfport alumni were torn. "We would like to keep that school and its history with us," said Yakes, who today is Gulfport's mayor. "But we have to recognize that children and education come first." In 1915, the residents of Gulfport built their children a school years before that job belonged to a countywide school board. Now a new generation of residents is looking out for the school, trying to ensure that the new Gulfport Elementary honors the old. That work could culminate next week, when contractors gingerly remove the bricks and mortar surrounding an arch on the building's northwest side. Half the school was demolished earlier this week. Preservationists, who gave up years ago trying to convince the School Board to preserve the old school, hope to save at least the arch. It will stand on its own in a landscaped area near what will become a parking lot, a monument to a community and its first school. Supporters have talked of adding a plaque, perhaps with a depiction of the original Gulfport Elementary etched into it. The arch's plaque would read: "Through this arch passed generations of Gulfport children." "It wouldn't stand a chance if they just bulldozed the building down and were just roughly demolishing it," said Emmett Walsh, a Gulfport resident and architect who has lobbied for preserving the arch. "I thought if they did a delicate job of surgically removing the arch, so to speak, it would be fairly structurally stable." The school has another similar arch, and as construction workers dismantled that one, they paid attention to how it was put together. They hope that knowledge will help them preserve the other. Contractors already have cut through the concrete surrounding the arch, hoping that as the rest of the building tears away, the arch will remain standing. "It's anyone guess whether it'll work -- I'd say 50-50, I guess," said Brian Murphy, project manager for Beck, the construction manager on the job. Murphy admits the Gulfport Elementary job is different than most. "Usually you just go in and take it down and just take it all away." But Gulfport couldn't bear to see it end that way. The shell of a school its early residents built still exists beneath the addition and renovations the School Board did after it took over the property in the 1920s. Residents convinced the School Board to dismantle the school piece by piece, preserving some cherished mementoes and some of the bricks and mortar that held the place together. Walsh said items removed from the school before it was torn down included foot-shaped stepping stones from the courtyard; an old-fashioned radiator; some unique architectural elements from the outside, which contractors cut off the building; and a classroom cabinet with unique hinges that allowed the doors to slide back between the cabinets when opened. "They want to see that Gulfport Elementary is not forgotten," Jim Miller, the School Board's director of real property management, said of the historians and preservationists who lobbied the School Board to help them preserve artifacts from the school. "It's been very much a part of their past." Because of the unique give-and-take between residents and the Pinellas County School Board, the new Gulfport Elementary will have a flair not seen in the other prototype elementary schools around Pinellas. It will have Mediterranean-style architecture reminiscent of the old school, and a tile roof will replace the metal roof found on the prototype schools. "We're very proud of that. We're sure that if we didn't ask for that, Gulfport would look like the other prototypes," Walsh said. "We're absolutely delighted that the School Board picked up that request and ran with it. Now we have a unique building that's reminiscent of the building it replaces." School Board staff is not yet certain how much the added amenities will cost, though Tony Rivas, director of facilities, said he expects the project will still meet the budget set for it. Murphy, with the construction management company, said demolition of Gulfport Elementary has drawn quite a crowd during the couple of weeks the company has been on site. That's no surprise to School Board staff members who have dealt with the Gulfport residents. "They're unique, and that is the only elementary school they have," Rivas said. "A lot of the community has gone through it, so there is an essence of tradition."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
