Rendering of proposed twin high school on the site of McCoy Stadium. (SLAM)
We attended the farewell fireworks for McCoy Stadium last night, dubbed “The Final Inning.” Did not get there in time to secure the wrist bands that would have assured us a seat on the playing field to watch the fireworks. But we got a nice space on the lawn next to the fire house and settled into our lawn chairs to watch the explosions. Which naturally set us to thinking about what might be next for McCoy.
Apparently, the city thinks the field should be knocked down and replaced by a complex that would bring together under one roof the aging Shea High School on East Avenue, built in 1938, and Tolman High School on Exchange Street, built in 1926. And maybe the art high school across the street. In for a dime, in for a dollar, right? Why not? Pawtucket voters gave a big thumbs up to the idea, approving a bond issue of $330 million last year, and images are already available to show us what the school might look like.
The renderings are from SLAM, short for S/L/A/M Collaborative, which designed a beautiful new Center for the Humanities at Providence College. SLAM is apparently not proud of it, to judge by its website, where that cultural facility is not pictured. The renderings for the school originally designed by SLAM to replace McCoy remind me of Tom Wolfe’s description of the typical new high school attended by students today: “a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse.”
Talk about the soft bias of low expectations! No wonder American students are doing so well!
Another architect has succeeded SLAM for the Pawtucket School District. When I find out who it is and what it has designed, I will attempt to post it, though WordPress makes that extremely difficult. I would be surprised if the new architect does not produce a building whose appearance equally merits Wolfe’s description.
(Both Shea and Tolman are beautiful buildings, however, which suggests, as one would think, that there are more factors involved in our education crisis than the disappearance of beautifully designed schools.)
A better idea would be to let billionaire Stefan Soloviev, age 48, rehab McCoy and acquire a baseball team to play there. His land development firm, called Crossroads Agriculture, based in Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico, is worth $2.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He is said to be the 26th largest landowner in the United States.
Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebian says McCoy is off the table. No it is not. But if not McCoy, let Soloviev build his own stadium where the city still envisions a soccer stadium near the Apex site, although that plan has run into financial difficulities (allegedly now resolved).
And the city should abandon the idea of putting two or three schools on one site at McCoy. To call that an awkward proposal for a city like Pawtucket would be to shame the word awkward. The $330 million proposed for that idea would serve to lovingly restore Tolman and Shea, which is admittedly in pretty bad shape. There would be enough left over to finance a major hunk of the city’s share of Soloviev’s project – if such a share were necessary.
The one question that remains is whether the Pawsox – now called the Woosox, or something like that – might be induced abandon what I hear is an uncomfortable situation in Worcester to return to Rhode Island.
Architecture Here and There 
Thank you, John.
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Turns out the above rendering of the new high school is sorely outdated. The renderings shown to the School Committee last week for approval of the RIDE Stage II application were of a six story(!) building, apparently reduced from eight based on prior School Committee comments.
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Great! I can see the kids running up six flights of stair to get to a class on time, or standing around waiting for an elevator (if cost permits) that’s out of service. Good luck!
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Or evacuating in an emergency…
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If you’re gonna build new school for Area, Suggest Going green. More practical design, aesthetic and save school money over time.
Like 901 Cherry in SF. Building once Headquarters for Youtube. Covered in Green roof.
Open able windows permit fresh air, exhaust filters clean the air before exits.
Views are nice.
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If you’re explaining why architectural design of a school fosters kids dysfunctionally, explain High performing Japan whose schools resemble Brutalist Prisons
Or when a century Ago US Prisons and Schools looked the same
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Learn to read, Lazy. The post reads in part: “Both Shea and Tolman are beautiful buildings, however, which suggests, as one would think, that there are more factors involved in our education crisis than the disappearance of beautifully designed schools.”
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Japanese schools also have the highest suicide rates in the world, so if we are going to confuse correlation and causation, that should be reason enough not to emulate Japanese school architecture.
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Japan also has the highest suicide rates for school-aged children in the world, so if we are going to confuse correlation and causation, that should be reason enough not to emulate Japanese school architecture.
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Sorry for the double post, the first one didn’t appear to go through.
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David, this is a beautiful tribute to McCoy, Shea, and Tolman, and an excellent critique of what the City wants to give us to replace all three.
The voters of Pawtucket already approved a $119.4 million bond in 2018 to restore Tolman and Shea, a process which was to have begun in June 2021. Shea was vacated at the end of the 2020-21 school year in preparation, with tens of thousands of dollars of supplies discarded. With contractors already ready to go, RIDE in June 2021 rejected the City’s plan for accommodating students while each school was closed for two years- everyone in the other school, 9th graders full time, 10th through 12th graders on alternating virtual days. The plan was scrapped and the central high school at McCoy was born out of the City having no imagination for any other option, with the students stuck in the crumbling, unrenovated buildings throughout the five year process of constructing the new school.
The central high school is a poor choice for so many reasons – the loss of McCoy stadium; the concentration of 2,000 students from two schools with overburdened administrations to one school with an exponentially more overburdened administration; siting the school so that a miniscule proportion of the student body is close enough to walk or bike; the fact that McCoy Stadium is literally built on a pond, which might be OK for a concrete grandstand but probably isn’t for a large building intended to serve the City for generations, especially in the face of planning for climate resiliency.
The good news is that Stefan Soloviev’s proposal to save the stadium is due in to the City in the coming weeks, and it sounds like they might actually consider it. Meanwhile, we all need to show our support for saving it.
Sign and share the petition – https://chng.it/gmFQNwBQfg
E-mail the mayor – dgrebien@pawtucketri.com
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Thank you for providing this information, Michael. I had been unaware of the previous bond issue to upgrade those schools. That just makes the current plan seem even more idiotic, indeed, how can it be explained without recourse to the word corruption?
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Many of
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1981, the Pawtucket Red Sox began the longest game in professional baseball history. For 20 innings, the PawSox battled the Rochester Red Wings in a 1–1 tie. The Red Wings would finally score in the top of the 21st inning to take the lead. The PawSox then scored a run in the bottom of the inning. The game was far from over. The game went on until 4:07 a.m. because the umpires did not have a curfew rule
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Thanks very much, Jack, for your anything-goes comment. If everything pleases you, you are more likely to be happy, I’m afraid, than I am!
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GREETINGS! Your comments and suggestions sound most interesting and intriguing …. always like to retain the effects of our past or history, modernization is uplifting and new facades are quite exciting. You seem to have all the ‘basses’ covered … to circulate those concepts and ideas. Best Wishes & Blessings of the labor Day & Week!Jack
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