School – Easterday Construction Co., Inc.

I think I have written on this before (when the middle school gym was built), but my search capabilities weren’t sufficient to find the previous post. This is dating myself and includes some historic ramblings, so here we go…

I didn’t see any promotional material on the changes for the Culver Communit y School buildings this summer, so seeing the glass block come down and seeing it replaced with new black smoked glass was a bit of a surprise. I was also a bit amused by the progression.

Forgive me for doing this extemporaneously without doing the research, but it’s not something that I felt mattered beyond my memory.

Culver Elementary School Main Entrance in 1952.

The elementary school was built before air conditioning and was built with windows that opened across the bottom, about 4′ above the floor, and glass block above those windows reaching up 10′, letting in light for the high ceiling classrooms. Google failed me on finding good images of this, but I found the images to the right and below on the Maxinkuckee History Past Tracker page showing pictures of the school from the 1952 as the new elementary school addition was first opened.

The glass block isn’t very clear in this picture, but there was another interior picture on that page that showed the glass block a bit clearer. I’ve included that one to the left. I don’t have pictures from Easterday Construction’s history at the school, but I know we did the north addition and struggled to match the glass block, brick and windows, as the Architect wanted continuity.

The progression of the remodels has always amused me. The construction of the middle school gym was completed at the same time or just before the remodeling of the elementary school in the early 2000’s. Two different architecture firms were employed. It would appear they didn’t talk…

Culver Middle School Gym with glass block clerestory.

Knowing how Architects often think, I’ve always postulated the following: The middle school Architect knew that splitting the elementary school and middle school was a big change. (There was lots of controversy moving the middle school from being attached to the elementary school to attaching it to the high school.) He wanted to tie the new gym construction to the high school to which it was being attached. Similar brick and metal banding was used to accomplish this. But to ease the transition and keep continuity for the children moving from the elementary school building to the middle school building, the glass block “theme” was used, even though use of glass block was somewhat dated at the time. The gym include a glass block clerestory and some other glass block accents. Meanwhile, working within his own silo, the elementary school Architect wanted to update the building look and knowing that glass block is notoriously bad for insulation and weathertightness over time, replaced the block with colored metal panels! Hahahahaha! He also changed the entrance to create a simulated nautical theme (think masts).

New Main Entrance and colored window panels.

The remodel of the elementary school received a lot of hate. The new panels with the “rolling” accent lines deemed playful by the Architect were deemed gaudy by the community. (Picture to the left from the Culver Visitors Guide.) My Mother, Jackye Berger, was on the school board at the time and was somewhat incensed by the difference between what was approved and what was installed. The presentation to the school board was done using a full façade picture ( a long horizontally and short vertically picture of the entire east side of the building) with colored pencil (pastel) colors rather than the bright and shiny panels that were installed. The Architect later admitted that was intentional as they knew the bright panels wouldn’t get approved… As these things go, the Architect for the Culver Union Township Library addition then decided to carry the nautical theme and create a sail effect… which has since been removed/modified due to multiple issues…

Culver Community Middle School Gym during glass block replacement

So now we’re in a new era. The elementary school panels have been repainted in earth tones (very nice) and the glass block is going away at the middle school. Since I haven’t seen the plans, I don’t know if all of the glass block is going away, but it appears they are saving the vertical bands at the corners. Future generations will wonder why it’s there and a future school board will undoubtedly change that too.

Best to start this out saying these are observations about which I’ve been too lazy to research. These are just what I’ve observed from my vantage point across the street.

Currently, Culver Community School Corporation is in the process of replacing paving at the elementary school and middle/high school. The paving is being ground off and (I assume) new asphalt will be installed. I understand that part of the paved area at the elementary school will be repurposed as playground with a new playground surface in lieu of asphalt.

When the elementary school lot was revised and repaved a couple of decades ago, it included landscape islands with small patches of grass and trees. To the school’s credit, they planted trees of significant size, but after the first year, care for these trees waned. Over the years, a few died and were left standing as skeletons. Eventually, these were cut down along with the remaining live trees, which frankly, were not doing well.

Former CES Island with curb cut flush and filled with gravel

The maintenance of the islands declined and eventually, a couple of years ago, the school cut the curbs flush with the pavement, stripped the topsoil and filled the area in with compacted limestone, effectively adding this area to the impervious surface and gaining a half dozen parking spaces.

This was sad as the islands effectively broke up the pavement and the trees would have eventually provided some respite from the hot black asphalt. It’s always interesting that during the hotter parts of the school year, some teachers will park on our side of Slate Street under the shade of our trees and walk a bit farther, rather than having their cars cooking on the CES parking lot.

The current project appears to be removing the islands completely. This shouldn’t be an impervious surface issue if the new playground area is a pervious surface. It is an aesthetic and functional issue. The islands broke up the expanse of asphalt. The trees looked nice and gave scale to the building. I realize that the islands hindered efficient snow removal, but it would have been nice to preserve them and to replace the trees. I’m sure the Tree Commission could have worked out something to include them in their planting plan.

I’m also curious what is to be done with the existing drywells. No inlet protection is being used, so they are becoming further clogged. I’m hopeful that remediation of these is part of the plan. To be effective, they need to be cleaned and I don’t believe they have been since installation.

This is an example of how my blog blathering helps me track time, since I was able to find where I had brought this up before, clear back in 2009! Ha! I recall watching the brick masons for the gym addition setting up their saw and cutting bricks directly over the drywell with no inlet protection whatsoever… Interestingly, the storm water project mentioned in the article in 2009 was completed, but it didn’t include any connections to the school’s system. Currently the drywells overflow, the parking lot fills and excess runs out the lot entrance and surface flows to the Lake Shore Drive storm water catch basins.

Changing School Images

Culver Elementary School Parking Lot