Recognize that cool tower with the antenna on top? And those gothic arches? That’s Sheridan School (“Sheridan Academy of Excellence”). Not what the NASA-affiliated public school looks like now, but what it will look like after the city rebuilds it. Officials unveiled the new design at a neighborhood meeting Thursday night. The talk was of how to respect the old while building the new; and of how, if possible, to avoid even more frustrating morning rush hour traffic tie-ups as Sheridan expands.
Architect Kenneth Boroson unveiled preliminary sketches of the redesign to about a dozen people in the Sheridan cafeteria. Officials expect to close the school in early 2007 and reopen the renovated version in fall of 2008. Sheridan, currently, a middle school, will become a pre-kindergarten-through-8th grade school. The renovation is part of the New Haven’s $1.5 billion school rebuilding program.
Boronson comes to Sheridan with cred: He was also the architect on the rebuilding of Truman School, one of the program’s gems (which says a lot, given how terrific many of the new schools look). His new design calls for keeping and fixing up Sheridan’s circa-1922 main wing; and demolishing the newer, 1954-built wing, then building that half from scratch.
That same happened at at least two other schools, Beecher and Edgewood: The almost 100-year-old original buildings were still sturdy, attractive, and worth repairing. The blander, more modern mid-century additions had deteriorated. It made more sense to demolish them and rebuild rather than to preserve them.
How did that happen?
The early 20th-century buildings had better workmanship, Boronson observed. They had brick walls 16 – 20 inches thick. Builders made them sturdy, solid. In the 1950s, builders and architects rejected the old. They went in for modernist designs that favored a lot of metal. They sealed the walls poorly. The metal has rusted.
Boronson believes that when designing the new, architects should respect what came before, “mirror and reflect the old.”
“It’s like when you go to a family reunion,” he said. “You don’t blow off the grandparents. You talk to them.”
So in designing a new building for a 21st century Sheridan, Boronson “talked” to the original building’s facade with its neogothic arch. Then he drew three new open-air arches to connect the new and old buildings. The arches open onto the courtyard, which will be prettified and slope down to the middle of the two buildings to help them become handicapped-accessible.
The new building will feature a tower which spirals toward the sky. That’s in keeping with the design of New Haven’s grand gothic City Hall, Sterling Memorial Library and older churches.
It’s also in keeping with Sheridan’s new identity as a science and technology school in partnership with NASA. Boroson thought of that identity when he put an antenna at the top. At the least it would serve an artistic function. The school could also possibly use it, he figured, after he visited and learned that students make radio contact with the space shuttle and monitor conditions on Jupiter.
Boroson also envisions putting in new tinted and energy-efficient windows at the back of the courtyard.
Island Moves
The design impressed the dozen or so people witnessing Thursday night’s unveiling. Discussion at the meeting came down from the heavens to earth — to Fountain Street in New Haven, specifically — when the topic turned to traffic.
Already, drivers get frustrated during morning rush hour when the busses drop off kids at Sheridan. The busses’ stop signs halt traffic in both directions of clogged Fountain Street, a major commuter artery.
Now the school’s student body will grow from about 350 to an estimated 654. That means more busses.
Boroson and Susan Weisselberg, head of the citywide schol rebuilding program, said they wrestled with the traffic problem, and found their options limited. They chose not to try to buy adjoining homes and demolish them to make room for a wide area on school grounds for busses to drop off kids. They didn’t want to take away too much of the land from the field in the back, either, because kids exercise there.
They came up with a partial solution. They plan to add a new driveway in the middle of the block and a turnaround loop in the rear. Busses won’t fit there, but cars can, so parents dropping off students will be off Fountain and Emerson streets. A service area will get delivery trucks out of the way, too.
Plus, the drawings envision an indentation to the sidewalk in front of the school so the busses can at least pull over a bit.
“It wasn’t a perfect solution,” Susan Weisselberg said. “There wasn’t room for a perfect solution.”
Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman suggested a closer-to-perfect solution: Moving the concrete island currently in the middle of Fountain Street over to where the busses will pull over. That would separate the busses from the rest of traffic, and allow cars to pass.
The rest of the people gathered to hear the presentation seemed to like that idea.
The official reaction?
“That’s thinking outside the box,” architect Boroson replied. He and Weisselberg promised to pursue the idea with traffic officials. Boroson noted, though, that Fountain is a state road. He said the traffic people repeatedly asserted that it’s tough to get state approval for any changes to state roads, no matter how minor.
“The state might like it better,” suggested Thomas Lehtonen, the 27th Ward’s new alderman, “because they won’t have to plow around the island” anymore.
One small step for public works … one giant step for commuters late for work?