County Council testimony

This is what I told the Council last night about the Wheaton project for a library and recreation center.  I also submitted some photos of the Wheaton Youth Center which clearly show that the building is in severe disrepair and is barely adequate for what it does now.

Testimony of Art Brodsky

Before the Montgomery County Council

Feb. 25, 2014

President Rice, Vice President Leventhal, members of the Council:

My message to you tonight is very simple. The Wheaton community needs, wants and deserves a new library and recreation center. These should be built at the soonest possible time, at the lowest possible cost.

Throughout the process that has brought us here tonight, many people suggested compromises to the Planning Board as it considered what to do about the Wheaton Youth Center, which has become the biggest barrier to this project.

We pointed out that the Center did not meet many of the criteria the Board uses to designate structures as historic, that the building was in poor shape, that it would be prohibitively expensive to maintain and to upgrade and that it doesn't meet the needs of the growing and thriving community around it.

We suggested memorializing the Youth Center. The Asian-inspired curves could be incorporated into the design. The arch on Georgia Avenue, now rotting, could be rebuilt. An exhibit in the new building could help people share the history of the old structure, much as the exhibit does at the shopping center at Georgia Ave. and Colesville Road.

All of those ideas were summarily rejected.

This evening, I ask you to deal in reality. Not nostalgia. Not abstract academic interest. Reality.

The reality is that in two hearings before the Planning Board, there was a clear divide among those testifying. On one hand, there were those who saw the Youth Center building through a nostalgia-tinted lens, or as an abstract academic exercise, citing honors given 50 years ago when the structure was new and useful.

On the other, there were those, mainly from the community, with first-hand experience with the building, who see it as undersized, badly in need of repair, and, for all of its past glories, not sufficient to serve a growing and thriving community in Wheaton.

So here is the question for those on the Planning Board and the historic preservation community: How could you let such a “modernist, award-winning structure” fall into such a disreputable state? 
 
Where have you been for the past 30 years, or 20 years, or 10 years? What makes you think any nonprofit would want to be housed in there, much less pay for repairs?

When I testified before the board, I showed photos of the rotting arch out front, of plastic bags stuffed in doors as insulation, and of rooms too small to be of use. Others testified that the roof leaks, the carpeting is moldy, the gym floor isn’t level and some kitchen appliances don’t work. The lighting is dim and the rooms, supposedly in Japanese style, are too small.

According to the Planning Board, none of that mattered in their decision to render the structure historic. The condition of the building is irrelevant. That it fails to meet most of the criteria for designation is irrelevant — it need only meet one.
I'm sure the Youth Center of yesteryear provided fine memories to many people. But today, it should not stand in the way of a new library for Wheaton and should not disrupt the plans for the rec center.

Even if musical history was made there, and it's dubious, remember the Beatles played Shea Stadium, and the place was still torn down.