The state will finance most of the cost for a new $115 million Bassick High School. How officials go about the makeover is another thing. Board of Education member Maria Pereira proposes a hybrid of preserving the original building from 1929 and demolishing the 50-year-old addition for a new structure, in lieu of a complete knockdown on the site.
Pereia has started a petition drive, see here.
“As someone born & raised in Bridgeport who graduated from the BPS I understand the importance of ensuring our students have state-of-the-art learning environments while preserving our history,” Pereira writes on the petition page. “We can accomplish both by completely renovating the original Bassick HS building while demolishing the addition built in 1967 and replacing it with a completely new structure.”
OIB asked Charles Brilvitch, the preeminent authority on Bridgeport’s architectural history, to weigh in on the Bassick structure. He writes:
“Bassick was supposed to be one of the most beautiful high schools in America when it was built in 1925. (The Junior High School wing was added in 1928). It was designed by Ernest G. Southey, who did some of the city’s most iconic buildings (Seaside Park bathhouse, Bridgeport Hydraulic building across from the Barnum Museum, UB President’s house) in the course of his career … I definitely think the building is a keeper and that no modern replacement could ever hold a candle to it. You don’t see Yale tearing down their historic Gothic quadrangles and replacing them with a replica of an airline terminal in Brasilia from the early ’60s, do you?”
Pereira’s petition page adds:
By signing this petition you are supporting the Hybrid Architectural Design which maintains the original building; with a comprehensive renovation, while demolishing the current addition and replacing it with a modernized addition. Our students would have the best of both worlds!
You also support our Bassick High School students having a 21st Century state-of-the-art school building which prepares them for a future filled with opportunity and success while preserving a meaningful piece of Bridgeport’s history!
I have never advocated for the preservation of any building in my entire life, however there is something about Bassick High School that just moves me.
As you enter, if you pause and look above you, you will see so much incredible detail. All the entrances are rather majestic. The entrance ways are grand with beautiful glass panes above the doors and memorial plaques commemorating Bassick students lost to war. The most magnificent area is the auditorium which has incredibly handcrafted scroll work surrounding the stage and across the balcony.
When the architects designing the new school made a presentation at Bassick in October, they told me you could never build a “Bassick” today because the cost would be exorbitant. In 1924, the Bassick family home was demolished and the E & F Construction Company won the bid to build the original “Bassick” building at a cost of $692,946.
I support a new Bassick High School 100%, however we don’t need to throw out the bath with the bathwater. Let’s completely renovate the original Bassick building with all the bells and whistles, demolish the addition from 1967 and replace it with a completely modernized building. Another consideration is we just replaced the roof on the original building in the summer of 2015 which cost tax payers $2,000,000. Taxpayers will likely be paying for that roof/interest for at least another 15 years.
The architects created three (3) designs:
1) A renovation of both buildings as they are today
2) a complete tear-down with building an entirely new school
3) A hybrid which merges the original structure with a brand new addition while creating a courtyard between both buildings.
I think the hybrid option provides our students, staff and community with the best of both worlds. 🙂
I would support a hybrid that maintains the original iconic “front walls” but everything beyond that needs to be demolished. We are looking at new building standards,electrical,HVAC etc. Beyond the recognizable iconic wall is a building that sorely needs “fixing” up both in terms of the hardware(bricks and mortar) and the software(what is teached and support services). BY THE WAY, SINCE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BASSICK<WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NOV 13 BOE MEETING WITH THE TWO COMPETING SIDES TO THE LAMONT VISIT AROUND ELECTION DAY?
We don’t need to throw away the baby (not the bath) with the bath water. It’s okay if it’s baby Frank Gyure. There is a Connecticut Genaral Statute which mandates majestic type of architecture in the design of new schools.
Good question on the November 13 BOE meeting Frank. If I was Dennis Bradley, I
I’d call for Superintendent Johnson to appear in front of the board to answer a few questions .
I would have asked the Super why is it that Bassick High School Football Coach could run for State Senate and mail at least 3 campaign mailing pieces containing images of Bassick High School athletes (African American) posing at Bassick? On one of the last mailings Deckeem appears alone wearing a Bassick coach uniform. Why couldn’t the event be scheduled after school hours?
It is an inexcusable waste of perfectly sound structures, even if not historic, from an environmental perspective
An exhorbitant expenditure of tax dollars for new construction will not improve education- empiiclly, in Bridgeport, it never has- provide me with proof that it has!
We just spent millions on a new roof for Bassick and there is an observatory on the roof of the newer building
When Carmen Lopez and I toured the building when I was Councilman-no one had a key to the locked library!…see what I mean? The problems are systemic and chronic and the solution does not lie in throwing money at the problem for the benefit of the Educational Industrial Complex in the name of our kids who are being used as pawns for politicians and private interests!