Is there a plan to use the former Washington School property along Oakwood Avenue?
If no plan exists, what would west side residents like to see happen to the property?
Does the Youngstown Public Schools still own the property that Washington School sat on?
There are a number pf parcles that contain long abandoned schools, most of which are in an advanced state of decay, and should be torn down. As they stand they are nothing more than a source of problems for the neighborhoods they are in.
Remember how long it took the folks on the West Side to get Washington School torn down?
Maby it's time for the city to start using its power to take control of these properties and force the Board to tear the buildings down, and turn the land over to the city.
So long as the Board of Education holds title to the land there is little the neighbors can do.
QuoteDoes the Youngstown Public Schools still own the property that Washington School sat on?
According to the county auditor's website, it looks like the school board still owns the Washington school site.
It wouldn't make a good garden -- full of bricks and refuse from the demo.
Even if the lot has bricks and debris in it - a small, rented tractor with a steeltooth rake attachment could - and
WOULD - remove this type of leftover building material from the soil both quickly and efficiently. The entire top
layer of soil could be rendered "garden ready" within a few days. Any whole bricks that are found in the soil
could then be set aside and either recycled, or used to build something useful right on the former school
site - such as brick legs for some park benches, brick pillers for a small, open sided pavilion, etc, etc.
Re-used building materials are an absolutely cost effective means of doing small public projects
like this. When the Westlake Terrace housing project was removed on the north side, it was not
demolished - rather, it was carefully "de-constructed" and the used brick was stacked on pallettes (sp?)
so that it could be used to build other building(s) elsewhere - thereby saving someone, somewhere,
a BOAT load of money on construction materials. New bricks are NOT cheap!
I am re-using some of the bricks that used to make up the garage that was attached to the back of
my apartment building on Bryson Street in the same manner, for the same reason(s). The old, solid
clay brick is much higher quality and much stronger than the "cast" bricks that are used to build
most of the new buildings nowadays.
:)
:)