With the recent world war in the rear view mirror, local leaders, especially in the education field in Oneonta, wanted to move forward with ambitious projects in 1946.
The first project made news in the Oneonta Herald of Jan. 10, 1946 as, “Erection of a new high school building to provide adequate space and facilities for progressive trends in public education will be asked of the city by the Board of Education.
“Announcement to this effect was made last night when the board met with members of three citizen-survey committees in the health center of Oneonta High school,” which at that time was found on Academy Street. Oneonta schools were also under the domain of city government.
“Nathan Pendleton, president of the board read a resolution adopted in a special meeting Sunday which stated: ‘Resolved that the Board of Education shall ask the City of Oneonta for the construction of a new six-year High school to be ready for occupancy in September, 1950. The new plant shall include a vocational department which will offer vocational and trade courses to post-high school youth and adults from Oneonta and from the Tri-County area.’
“The resolution drew enthusiastic response from the committee members, who, last June 30, presented to the board a report on their surveys under the heading, ‘Your Schools Today and Tomorrow.'”
While there was a lot of enthusiasm by the board, the excitement didn’t translate well with local taxpayers, and there was anticipation of this at that meeting.
“‘This board,’ Mr. Pendleton said, ‘is fully aware that it is going to catch a lot of bricks, but we are determined to see it through to a successful end.'”
It took several other succeeding school boards to finally see this through, as there were many rejected votes by the public on construction, and the last two numbers switched places, from a start in 1946 to a completion in 1964.
The old high school building opened in 1908 on Academy Street, and served as a junior high school in the district until 1976. Sixty-eight years. The East Street high school is currently in its sixty-second year, and undergoing some major renovations.
On one of our city’s college’s campuses came word of another ambitious plan. As Herald readers of Feb. 14 found out, “Construction of two new buildings costing $325,000 and designed to expand the facilities of Hartwick College to care for an expected enrollment increase was authorized by the board of trustees yesterday at the mid-winter meeting in Albany.
“Dr. Henry J. Arnold, president of the college, said that spade work on the new structures to be erected on the present 76-acre campus site probably would begin May 27, Commencement day.
“In approving plans submitted by the Rochester architectural firm of Kaelber and Waasdorp, the trustees announced that they call for a religion and arts building costing $300,000 and a women’s dormitory involving an expenditure of $125,000.
“Both buildings will be Georgian-Colonial in architecture, corresponding in style with the present structure.”
The ambitious and attractive plan didn’t work out as planned. As told in the book, “Hartwick College: A Bicentennial History: 1797-1997, “Swollen enrollment created a critical shortage of housing and classrooms. The first structure since the construction of Science Hall appeared on the campus, but these were not the kind of elegant edifices envisioned by the founders.
“Like the ex-GIs whose voluminous presence occasioned the need, these buildings were well-worn veterans of military service financed by the federal government. Prefabricated structures that had served their original purposes at Army and Navy bases, they were dismantled and shipped to the Hartwick campus to provide temporary quarters for living and learning.
“There was a cafeteria building and, nearby, the first Leitzell Hall, a two-story dormitory accommodating 60 men. Six two-story wooden housing units with 16 apartments for married students quickly became known as ‘Splinterville’ or ‘Fertile Valley.’ Extending north from Science Hall was the Arts Building, an L-shaped wing containing 12 faculty offices, 10 classrooms and a small theater, all of which looked so impermanent it was immediately christened ‘Cardboard Alley.’ Farther north, a reconstructed Navy cement-block field house went up in 1948.”
All these post-war buildings are gone today, but it took a few decades before they were replaced by more “elegant” structures.
On Saturday, more local college campus news from February 1971.