Last week an article was brought to my attention about our former, and dearly beloved, stadium in Philadelphia--Veteran's Stadium. A site that will always have a special place in my heart, Phillies games, Eagles games, NFC Championship losses, '93 Phillies, etc... But for the purposes of this post, that's neither here, nor there--it's about how the City of Philadelphia still owes almost $200,000 on a Stadium that once was.
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2013/06/14/paying-building-now-demolished-vet/
The Vet opened in 1971 and gave us almost 35 good years, until it ultimately met its demise in 2004. So where the hell does Sam Seaborn fit in to all of this? I'll get right to it. Germantown High School in Philadelphia--opened in 1914, still in use today. West Philadelphia High School--opened in 1912, still in use today. Now I know what you might be thinking... these schools have gone through significant renovations over the years, yada-yada,---of course they have. But that still doesn't detract from the fact that these schools are 100 years old.
Having traveled around the country for the last 5-6 years visiting schools, most of which were built before 1970, I often found myself wondering how it's okay to send students to buildings that have gone way past their prime, but we demolish and build new palaces for our professional athletes. That is just classic, iiWii--I get it, professional sports teams are in most cases million/billion dollar businesses and have significant economic impacts on their communities. That being said, I'm willing to bet all the coins in my spare-change jars that our schools are a bigger economic contributor than our stadiums, and that's where I bring in my man, Sam Seaborn.
Schools should be palaces. Teachers should make 6-figure salaries. We just have to find a way to make it happen. Until then iiWii... we still owe $183,000 on the Vet.
