"Cheers to Collettos; Jeers to university"
Editorial • Courier-Post • July 3, 2010
JEERS: To Rutgers-Camden for planning to take away one of Camden's few working theater spaces at the historic Cooper Library building. Rutgers-Camden says it needs space for large lecture classes and has few spaces available. It is understandable that the university would look to minimize costs by finding lecture hall space in buildings it already owns. The Cooper Library was given by the city to Rutgers-Camden in the 1980s.
But the nonprofit Walt Whitman Arts Center calls the building home, as it has since 1975, and stages its nearly two dozen concerts and other performances throughout the year in the 184-seat theater.
Rutgers-Camden plans to reduce the seating to 75 and remove the stage, essentially taking away the theater. Rutgers-Camden officials say the Walt Whitman Arts Center can use the 600-seat Gordon Theater on the Rutgers campus and a smaller black box theater that's being renovated. But the arts center's administrative director says the Gordon Theater is too big for its programs and is often too hard to book since many other groups run programs there.
Rather than doing away with the theater, the university ought to be a little more compromising in its renovation plans. There has to be a way, in designed a lecture hall, to keep a stage so when there aren't classes, the arts center could still use the room as a theater. Large college lecture halls tend to be configured somewhat like theaters.
For a city of its size, Camden offers very little theater space for arts groups. It would be a shame to see one of the few theaters the city has, one that regularly hosts events, to disappear.
"Loss of theater lamented in Camden"
Walt Whitman Arts Center Administrative Director Pattricia Patino (from left), former artistic director Ozzie Jones and Robert McFarland, current arts director, discuss the importance of the center's theater on the Rutgers-Camden campus. (AVI STEINHARDT/Courier-Post)
By DEBORAH HIRSCH • Courier-Post Staff • June 30, 2010
CAMDEN — Starting as early as next week, Rutgers-Camden will begin converting a 184-seat theater at the home
of the Walt Whitman Arts Center into a lecture hall.
The move will partially displace the arts agency, which has used the former library on Cooper Street for programs and performances since 1975.
Though Rutgers-Camden has promised to continue supporting the center by providing rent-free offices and use of its other performing spaces, the nonprofit's leaders say the loss of their designated theater will be devastating.
"They're going to destroy the only public stage that Camden has for its artists and community to convert it to a classroom," lamented Pattricia Patino, the center's administrative director. "This is an architectural jewel."
Rutgers-Camden spokesman Mike Sepanic said the university was reluctant to repurpose the Cooper Street building but the campus has been strained for space for a few years now. Enrollment was at a record 6,100 students this year and that's expected to increase by about 200 students in the fall, he said. The university was able to convert former offices into small classrooms, Sepanic said, but there were no good options for larger lecture halls that didn't require extensive funding. Sepanic said the university even tried to hold classes in the theater without modifying the set-up, but students and teachers said it wasn't conducive to learning.
"We waited until we had no other options before we turned to this but our first priority is to teach our students," Sepanic said. "We don't want our students to be shut out of courses that they need in order to advance."
With $150,000 from the school's capital projects budget, workers will remodel the bathrooms, remove the stage and build new seating for 75 students, Sepanic said. The facade and other historic elements of the building will be preserved, he said. Construction will begin after Sunday and the classroom space is expected to be ready for use no later than the start of the spring semester in January.
The city owned the building, originally opened in 1918 as the Cooper Branch Free Public Library, when the Whitman Arts Center was founded there 35 years ago. The city later transferred the property to Rutgers-Camden in the 1980s, which continued to allow the center free use of the space, utilities and security. The center, which has a proposed $973,400 budget made up of grants and donations for the coming fiscal year, runs about 20 programs there each year. Between weekend performances and recurring poetry workshops, dance classes and music lessons, Patino said the stage and upstairs galleries are used almost every day.
Philip Freeman, president of the center's board of directors, said he was disturbed that the university couldn't solve its space crunch with creative scheduling or a different property in the area. To "foreclose" on a beautiful theater in a historic setting for a classroom "at the expense of the community is a travesty," he said.
It sends the message that the arts "don't mean anything in the city of Camden, like it's insignificant to the community," Freeman said.
Sepanic said Rutgers-Camden has no intention of disenfranchising the group and would continue to provide office space, rent-free, in the Cooper Library. Likewise, he said, the group will be able to use the Gordon Theater and possibly also a smaller black box theater that's undergoing renovations.
"We want them to succeed and we want to work with them to succeed," Sepanic said.
Despite those pledges, Patino worried that it wouldn't be so easy to run programs at the Gordon Theater. The center had trouble booking space there just this summer, she said, and usually the school needs at least two months advance notice because students, Symphony in C and several other groups share that space. Even if it is available, she said, it's far too big for most of their programs.
Freeman said he was looking to see if the center had any legal recourse. Short of that, he said, all he can do is appeal to the community to urge Rutgers-Camden to reconsider.
"The center and the arts in general is a vital part of Camden's revitalization," he said. "We're going to do everything that we can in our power to stop them from renovating that building."
Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com
"The Ribbon & The Rhyme"
Weekly Evening of Poetry with Patricia Middleton -Walt Whitman Arts Center Poet in Residence-
TUESDAY'S 7:30PM to 8:30PM
$5.00 Admission (Includes Light Refreshment)
For more information call
856-964-8300 or 856-283-7684
