Today was the final day of the big celebration of the remodeling of Garfield High School. A few weeks ago we showed you the inside of the original building. This weekend the new gym and performing arts center was open for tours by alumni and the community.
It’s an impressive facility. The theater is really amazing – quite possibly the nicest midsize theater in the entire city.
Here’s some photos of what we saw:
howdy.
I wasn’t able to attend today.
will there be public concerts/shows there or only garfield related events?
just curious!
anna
as I was registering voters at the Grocery Outlet. Beautiful!! The restoration of the main building is incredible, the theater and gym are just fantastic.
The music, provided by many different graduates from many different years, permeated the spaces. The acoustics of the theater are phenomenal.
There was comment made from the stage as they wrapped up, and by a friend of mine who was involved with the whole thing, that community people want to have community based events at the theater. Not sure where the school board is at on this. As a community resource, imagine how we can all benefit having the space used by neighborhood based theater and dance groups, and the great music talent we have created out of Garfield over the years.
I live in a home bordering Garfield and have not been happy with the construction that has gone on for over 2 years and is still not done. Most specifically the early morning(6am), late night (11:30pm)noise, overwhelming mud and dirt covering the homes and total lack of respect for the neighborhood by both Lease, Crutcher, Lewis and the Heery Company. I lost an incredible shade tree that had stood for 38 years in front of my house due to a “speeding” subcontractor hitting the tree branches and splitting it in two. No apology from them at all. (okay that was the rant:))
As a third generation graduate of Garfield, I have put up with a lot to see Garfield shine. On Saturday, I was totally impressed with the Performing Arts Center, the Gym, and the entrance area to the school. When I entered the building, the first thing that struck me was the stairs and hallways looked and smelled just like they did 40 years ago. The classrooms were outstanding, but there were dimly lit corridors to get to them.
Having attended some of the design meetings, what I saw Saturday was not what had been presented. The preforming arts center as well as gymnasium are supposed to be available for public rental, from what they said during the planning meetings. Which means an absolute traffic nightmare for the neighborhood if they have events in all 3 buildings at the same time.
The former stage was not wide enough to accommodate the orchestra.
Since Garfield is a Public School, the understanding is that the performing space will be available to the public at times that it is not in use by students. Garfield has great performing arts groups that will make good use of the space and who have for years had to arrange concerts around the schedules of other schools at other schools. They traveled far and wide to present concerts.