Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Rec center demolished; memories live on

Even though a new air-conditioned facility has replaced the Northwest Center, built in 1957, people are sad to see it go.

By SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE
Published March 12, 2006

The old sweat box is gone.

The site of sock hops and summer camps for five decades, the old Northwest "Youth" Center has been demolished and cleanup work should wipe up the last of it this week.

There's something about a physical space we played in as kids that makes people sentimental.

Even though a new air-conditioned facility with a play room, art room and huge gymnasium has replaced the old gym, people were dashing over to the demolition site all last week to retrieve a rock or a piece of honey-colored paneling to remember the place by.

Even the guy hired to tear it down is sad.

Joe McGeehan, 49, president of McGeehan Construction, has fond memories of playing basketball there with his buddies - among them University of South Florida football coach Jim Levitt (known to his pals as Jimmy back then).

"I've torn down a lot of buildings but this one is making me sad," McGeehan said. "It's where we used to all hang out. I made a lot of friends there."

Carved out of cow pastures in September 1957 at what is now 22nd Avenue and 58th Street N, it looked like a quonset hut with an onion-shaped Eastern architectural flourish on top.

Darlene Sendio, a recreation worker who teaches art and leads youth groups at the center's afterschool and summer camp programs, plans to save a piece of rubble and mark it with the date the building was born and when it passed on. She'll plant it in her garden.

"I have a lot of good memories after nine years in that place," Sendio said. "Even though it wasn't the greatest place," she said gesturing toward the gleaming new center, "it's a part of our history."

Roberts Community Center is next. The youth center at 1246 50th Ave. N could be Northwest's twin with a similar bulbous top and wooden beams. A spanking new 27,000-square-foot center that will combine youth and adult programs is scheduled for construction there later this year.

[Last modified March 12, 2006, 01:18:21]