Not out with old
Betty Brown, Emporia
Saturday, November 6, 2010
The Quonset buildings have many memories for me. It seems like every few years someone wants to build something new and tear down the old. There isn’t a thing wrong with them that a little paint won’t fix. There is a lot of room for storage 11 months of the year.
Do they generate any income for renting them out? You probably won’t be able to store any machinery or anything else in a new building. If the fair board can’t afford to paint them, I suppose that is the reason they haven’t been, so who will pay for the upkeep and utilities of a new building? I know some of the fair board members remember using the Quonset huts for fairs. I remember the cooking, sewing, crops and flowers along with garden in the second and third building. We guarded the door just as they do in the Anderson building to keep things from disappearing. We swatted the flies out of the glass cases where the cooking was placed. It is nice that Mr. Bowyer wants to donate. Had he thought of fixing up the grandstands? I think it is okay, but others feel it needs to be fixed.
It could be the Bowyer arena. There are racing activities there. There won’t be parking space and the stones on the corner should be relocated. I don’t understand much of that. It is pretty obvious that E.T. Anderson loved children, so let’s leave the ground for the youth. We don’t need any more places for partying and alcohol.
Betty Brown, Emporia
joecitizen (anonymous) says...
how much more of this senseless banter must we endure.
These huts were crappy second hand structures when they were put there, and they have run their course.
I'm all for saving important landmarks, and such, but this isn't the WAW house, or the Granada theater. just go ahead and try to get them on the historical register. they'd laugh at you before they hung up the phone.
glad to see that Holiday resort has a creative writing class. but really, don't mess up a good thing for your misguided nostalgia.
November 7, 2010 at 1:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Chevy_Guy (anonymous) says...
They might be second hand buildings and not in perfect shape, but they still serve a purpose, and once torn town, that space will be lost. I think that if the new building would replace the same amount of space being torn town, people would be more accepting, but the fact is we're about to tear down 16,000 sq. ft. and only replace 6,000 sq. ft. of it.
Since the Bowyer building will be around 6,000 square feet, only 2 of the quansets max should need to be removed for now. Maybe in the future someone else will be able to donate and build another building to replace the last two remaining quonsets.
November 7, 2010 at 9:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
joecitizen (anonymous) says...
your deluding yourself with the numbers. the only time the space is utilized, is to rent it to bluestem for storage, for a song. the one week a year, that we put people and booths in the huts, is miserable for all involved. ever worked a booth in there during the fair? impossible to heat or cool, and generally much hotter in these ovens, than outside, especially since no air moves through them. i for one would rather set up an easy up tent, and not be in the huts. beyond that, they never get used. the new facility will have a much larger footprint that just the 6000 sg ft, with the ability to open up to outside space too.and i'm quite sure will be used regularly, producing real revenue for the fair board to use elsewhere. the huts leak, have substandard, and limited electrical service, and are just plan not worth sinking any money into. don't stand in the way off progress, cause you fear change. change is not always bad
November 7, 2010 at 10:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dhcc66 (anonymous) says...
I guess I can see both sides of the argument. The quonsets serve their purpose for a week and a half a year....maybe more if you include storing some items for local businesses.
The quonsets are also decades old and way out of repair. They are at the front of the fairgrounds and they are most of what the people coming into Emporia from US 50 see to judge our fairgrounds by.
I've already seen an opportunity go by to improve by moving the "county" fair back to the county when a business wanted to move the fairgrounds out to where it is probably more appropriate for it to be.
If the "county" fair has to be in the middle of the west side of our city, the least we can do is make it a nicer place to visit for all.
How about this.....
Move the quonsets to a more appropriate place on the fairgrounds, say to the south end of the open area next to the grandstands??
Put the Bowyer building where it is planned.
Maybe the citizens of the community who want the quonsets saved could contribute to having them moved and preserved??
And lastly, I doubt ET Anderson wanted the fairgrounds preserved in the state it was in when he was around. I'm sure he would appreciate updates and making the fairgrounds an area that the whole community would be proud of.
November 7, 2010 at 12:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
biscuitboy (anonymous) says...
The fairgrounds is exactly that....a fairgrounds. As much as we should appreciate the gift the elder Mr Anderson gave to the city....I doubt if he thought of it, nor intended it, to be a shrine to his memory. I personally don't care if we keep the quonsets and move them to another location on the fairgrounds, renovate them and put the Bowyer Building someplace else (assuming of course that he would), or sell them off as scrap. But this attitude that everything E.T. did is sacred is just plain silly.
November 7, 2010 at 1:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
REWBA (anonymous) says...
I think some rich guy should disassemble the Quonset Huts and reassemble them by the welcome center/doggy poop park over at the turnpike exit/figure eight demolition derby track. Except instead of reassembling them as Quonset Huts, make them into a grand pyramid and then paint it purple on the outside and yellow in the inside. We could erect a large silo next to it and paint it to look like a giant beer can. Something like that would attract tourists so we could sell them trinkets made by the indigenous people of the slapaho tribe that live on the south east side of Emporia.
November 7, 2010 at 1:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
biscuitboy (anonymous) says...
LOL :-)
slapaho huh......lol
November 7, 2010 at 2:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
methusla (anonymous) says...
Wow, REWBA, " slapaho tribe on the southeast side of Emporia" , would or could that be classified or construed as a prefudiced/racist comment ?
I believe " YES " in both instances !
It certainly did not have " smart or funny conotations " at all !
Heres' a little tit for tat ! May one assume that you are a member of the "Self centered Elite- Snobaho tribe of Northwest Emporia " ?
November 7, 2010 at 2:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
REWBA (anonymous) says...
No no no methusla. The only real indigenous person that I know of on the northwest side of Emporia Emporia goes by the name of Chief Runningtab of the shopalot tribe. There is another who we call stackingbull but he is only 1/4 indian.
November 7, 2010 at 3:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
joecitizen (anonymous) says...
i agree that we missed a great opportunity, by not selling the fairgrounds. i'm not sure on what the Land would be worth, maybe KB could give us an idea of it's value, as development property. but lets just say for arguments sake, that it was say 3 million. way low estimate i'm sure, but for this illustration, it'll do.
Now i' am aware that the deed to the property stipulates that if sold, the proceeds go to the girl scouts or whoever it was.
okay, so sell the property for $100,000, and the girl scouts get a big influx of cash, they never could have anticipated.
This would be contingent on on the remaining 2.9 million of it's value being paid in the form of the buyer providing a new fairgrounds deeded to the county.
2.9 million would easily buy a mile section, allowing for near limitless future expansion on that property, and the capital to build vastly superior facilities than we currently have.not to mention that modern
vehicle and AG equipment dimensions could be applied to the architecture, allowing for far more useful facilities. the entire grounds themselves could be layed out better, to accomodate their uses. not to mention the infrastructure that could be done right from the ground up, solving our current problems with storm water drainage, fresh water and waste water systems. electric service, parking. late night noise ordinance violations, substandard, innadequate, or absent safety measures for events, and all the other issues the fair board has to deal with.
The fact of the matter, is the current situation, is such that the fairgrounds are land locked, with nowhere to grow. given that, we can't just keep piling up buildings here and there. the fairgrounds with it's limited parking, and pour traffic flow, are not good neighboors. ask any business on that section of industrial, highway 50, or 12th ave. and they
ll tell you about not having parking for their customers, during the fair, cause people have to park, and walk over.
i personally could care less about Bluestems storage problems, or the penny's they pay for rental on the huts they use. these huts are not functional, and are taking up much needed space. they are far to costly to fix up, or it would have happened by now. i have yet to see mr Anderson, or any of the "save the huts" brigade out there with a paintbrush. if they can really be fixed, why isn't it being done? that's right, it's because as we struggling to come to terms with our mortality while standing one foot in the grave, we get nostalgic for something that was never that great to begin with, in a desperate attempt to avoid confronting the the painful truth that we've not much time left. I don't see any of our youth opposing replacing the dlapitated huts with a modern functional multi use building, and they are the ones who will be here to use it. they're not historical landmarks, let em go.
November 7, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
uranidiot (anonymous) says...
If they tear down the huts, where am I going to get my free bibles and pens every year at the fair. Somebody please think of the bibles.
November 7, 2010 at 8:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )