August 24 - Report on our visit to the Lowell School open house mentioned in the previous post

I thought I'd share some initial impressions of my visit, with another person in tow, to the Lowell School open house to see the changes made to the school over the last year or two.

There is a lot to cover when discussing the changes to the inside of the building.  I did go into Lowell before the demolition and took pictures about which I'm glad so that I can go back to get a better contrast since I've forgotten a lot since then.

I will just write about what the other person that went with me thought - In short, he thought that there was a lot of wasted space with hallways, several big open areas, and very high ceilings. There did not seem to be an organized feeling to the layout of the rooms, hallways, and open areas. In fact, it was difficult to tell where one had gone before when walking through the building.

My thoughts - I admit, as people may guess, that I'm a softy for older historical buildings. New architecture needs to be saved for new buildings, I think. So-- I'm quite disappointed that the history of Lowell has, I hate to inform people that care about this,  essentially been whitewashed with a few exceptions, two being the outer façade as mentioned above, and the gym.

Thank goodness that the gym was not altered! When I say the history has been whitewashed, I actually mean whitewashed (or maybe ecru-washed would be the word). All wood has been painted. Most walls are now ecru or some shade of beige. So now we have  somewhat of a sterile atmosphere. There are a few colored walls(I did really like the colors of these walls). 

In my first post today, I mentioned that the principal told me a couple of years ago that the changes will be a nice mixture of old and new. Not so in my opinion. The inside of Lowell is almost all new, with the exception of the old school bell which was on display and a few old shelves.

These are our first impressions of the renovations/demolition of Lowell School as seen in the open house on Thursday, August 24, 2017. Pictures to come. Stay tuned. 

Oh, one more thing. A Missoulian reporter, who was very nice, her name was Jamye (perhaps wrong spelling), was looking for people to interview that did not have children. So here we were. (Both of our children are grown.) So --- I may be quoted in the Missoulian, my comments most likely being the same as what is in this post. Thanks for reading Missoula school watchdog!