Lost: Portland School
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | July 31, 2009
When school starts again later this month in Portland, Ore., students in the Dunthorpe neighborhood won't be returning to the classrooms their parents and grandparents knew.
The city's c. 1920 Riverdale Grade School, designed by Portland architects A.E. Doyle and Pietro Belluschi, was demolished in early July.
More than 600 people had signed a petition urging Riverdale School District officials to retain the exterior of the main grade-school building and renovate its interior, but officials said that wasn't economically possible.
"Nobody really wanted to lose the building until it was clear that it was not cost-effective and that it could not meet program needs for kids," says Terry Hoagland, superintendent of the Riverdale School District. "The limitations were too many, and the costs were too much."
In November 2008 voters approved a $21.5 million bond measure to upgrade the school. After the bond measure passed, officials instead recommended demolition of the historic main building.
Cathy Galbraith, executive director of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, Portland's preservation group, says officials were not forthright about the future of the A.E. Doyle building.
"There were many voters who thought that if they voted for the bond measure, they would save the building." Galbraith says. "The most bitter lesson is that the school district was never really interested in doing anything other than replacing the school."
Hoagland says his staff struggled with the decision to replace Riverdale and did manage to salvage many parts of the building, including windows, bricks from the facade, and the signature cupola. Workers are planning to lay a cornerstone so that visitors to the newer, bigger school—scheduled to open in August 2010—can see where the old building once stood.
"It has been part of this community for many years," Hoagland says. "It was a loss to all of us."
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Comments
Submitted by Brian at: July 31, 2009
For those interested in seeing the school, here is a link: http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2008/11/dunthorpe_divided_on_riverdale.html