Click here to subscribe today or Login.
It seems to have gotten lost in the endless debate about the fate of Meyer’s High School, the state of GAR Memorial High School and the potential location of any new high school built by Wilkes-Barre Area School District, but it is worth asking, and important to ask now rather than later.
Whither Coughlin High School?
Lest anyone forget, of the district’s three aging high schools in need of repair or replacement, Coughlin has long been deemed the most dire, so much so that parts were put off limit even while it was in full use, and the original building has been vacant since January of last year. Students were split — two grades in the renovated Mackin building, two in the newer annex section of Coughlin — while workers gutted the original building, removing asbestos in preparation of razing the edifice.
The plan was to knock it all down and build a new school to house grades 9 through 12 from Coughlin and Meyers, but work came to an abrupt halt when the Wilkes-Barre Zoning and Hearing Board denied a needed variance for the new school. The school board opted not to appeal that ruling and started looking for a new location outside city limits.
Most public debate has been about the fate of Meyers and the south Wilkes-Barre neighborhood it dominates. Warnings of a vacant shell rotting away while property values plummet are common. The other big topic has been the omission of GAR from the discussion, the idea that those students will be short-changed, left in an antiquated building in need of repair and upgrade while others enjoy a state-of-the-art high school experience.
And, of course, residents question the logic of placing a new school in Plains Township, a favored location in recent discussions, forcing so many city students to take a bus — or drive themselves — not only to daily classes, but to extracurricular activities after school or on weekends.
These are all important concerns in need of healthy debate, but the fate of the Coughlin building, consuming a chunk of space in Wilkes-Barre’s downtown, seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. Maybe that’s because people assume that, thanks to the location, the property will be valuable enough to find a buyer/developer once everything else is settled. Maybe it’s because it is pretty much in a business rather than residential area, so its fate is less likely to impact property values.
Maybe it’s because the old building is already empty, gutted and poised for demolition.
But history suggests neglecting the building is simply the wrong way to go. If the demise of the Sterling Hotel is insufficient as an example, consider the decay of the nearby Irem Temple, a true architectural gem that has increasingly shown the signs of decay as a tree grows out of its brick facade and the roofs over its minarets crumble.
Coughlin’s original building, more than century old, may be poised for demolition, but that is not an inevitable outcome. At the very least, the school board should make quite certain it is sealed and preserved as well as can be until a final fate is certain.