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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > December > 29 > Entry
Editorial: West Third Street needs ‘Roosevelt’
If there is to be a school at 2013 W. Third St., there is only one proper name for it: Roosevelt.
Alumni of the former Roosevelt High School are advocating to reuse the name, and they are right. Picking that name would pay homage to Dayton’s past and continue the fine legacy of learning that Roosevelt stood for in its 52 years as a school.
Roosevelt High School was razed in 2008 to make way for a new elementary school and city-owned recreation center. The all-boys elementary school that is planned for the site has no real name. Today it is called the Dayton Boys Preparatory Academy.
The school could easily be renamed the Roosevelt Boys Preparatory Academy.
The razing of Roosevelt was a long, tortured process and one of the Dayton school board’s toughest decisions of the last decade. The old school was a majestic building.
On its first day in 1923, Roosevelt was one of the very largest schools in the country. A 300,000-square-foot building was almost unheard of at the time. To Daytonians in the 1920s, it was a grand symbol of progress and prosperity.
As Dayton and the nation evolved, Roosevelt’s experience almost perfectly tracked some of the most important changes. For instance, the school was all-white when it opened in a white neighborhood on West Third Street. By the 1950s, demographics had begun to change and a third of the students were black.
School leaders struggled with the new reality, separating students by race for activities like swimming and sports until after the U.S. Supreme Court’s famous Brown vs. Board of Education ruling led to widespread integration.
Even so, black and white students from that era say they forged friendships across racial lines. Many of Dayton’s future leaders say their views of race relations were shaped by both good and bad experiences at Roosevelt High.
Eventually the school, like the school district, became majority black before it closed in 1975. In its later years, the building was primarily used as an administrative center.
The wisdom of the school board’s decision to demolish the building will probably always be debated. Several efforts to create a viable reuse plan fell short in the school board’s eyes.
In the end, board members felt the redevelopment for West Third Street offered by the joint plan with the city made more sense than trying to retrofit the old school.
Tearing it down broke hearts and brought tears. Of all the schools in the city, Roosevelt had the best argument that it was historically significant and worth saving as a link to Dayton’s storied past.
Roosevelt is a memory now and those links can never be completely restored. Reusing the Roosevelt name would simply be a symbolic gesture to the history that occurred on the site where the new school will stand.
But symbols do matter, and if the name is even the smallest nudge for the new school to explain to future generations the legacy they carry forward, then it is worthwhile.
Roosevelt still means something important in Dayton.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Civil Rights, Editorials, Education, Local History, Scott Elliott
Comments
By Bob540
December 29, 2009 3:21 PM | Link to this
My mother is an alumnus of Roosevelt HS and was opposed to its razing. I sent letters in support of keeping the building and utilizing it for other purposes (such as Senior housing), but to no avail. As I wrote then: If you wanted to start rejuvenating that neighborhood, the LAST building you would tear down is Roosevelt. The school board should have sold the building for a nominal fee, and then selected one of many blighted areas for the new schools. Instead, they were determined to tear down yet another part of Dayton’s history, putting up modern, shoddily-contructed buildings that won’t last half as long.
By Dan Patterson
January 3, 2010 9:58 AM | Link to this
Once again the DDN is leading the charge after the buildings are gone and the point is moot.
By Donald Mc Kinney
January 3, 2010 12:04 PM | Link to this
I vote to maintain the name Roosevelt for the new boys school because of the history at that location. I graduated from Roosevelt in 1960 and every five (5) years we have class reunions that bring students back to Dayton and we are proud of Roosevelt. Please maintain the name. Thank You !
By Heavy
January 4, 2010 1:50 PM | Link to this
Roosevelt Prep sounds good to me.also a DPS academic and sports hall of fame would have been real nice in that building but i guess thats to late to recomenned.