Lansing State Journal story on Eastern High School lacks credibility

Dear readers,

The Lansing State Journal published a misleading, inaccurate, and largely one-sided story last night about old Eastern High School. As a member of an ad hoc committee that hopes to save the landmark building from demolition by the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow so it can build a psychiatric hospital on the site, let me set the record straight.

The story says alumni “hope to save the exterior of the structure that is now planned (for) a medical building.” It never identifies its source for this conclusion. That is certainly not the goal of the ad hoc committee of Eastern alumni, eastside residents and preservationists that Council member Ryan Kost and I organized. The Committee to Preserve Eastern and Promote Mental Health rejects facadism and wants to preserve the nearly 100-year-old architectural gem and restore it to a useful purpose.

The LSJ story is focused on the idea of restoring the building for use as the psychiatric hospital that U M-Sparrow proposes: “But the hospital system - now University of Michigan-Sparrow - said the former high school is too dilapidated to be renovated into a functioning psychiatric care facility.”

The story fails to explore whether U M-Sparrow could build the proposed hospital elsewhere on its eastside campus, where we have identified 20 vacant acres. Our committee is not contending that old Eastern must or even should become the new psychiatric facility.

Not one preservationist is quoted in the story. Our committee includes Mary Olds Toshach, president of Preservation Lansing, who holds master's degrees in historic preservation and urban planning, and Dale Schrader, the group’s former president. They are nowhere to be found in the story, nor any other preservationist.

Had the Journal sought comment, the story would have given readers an essential perspective on what can be done with historic buildings given the desire and resources. All one has to do is read the Journal’s own recent story on the restoration in progress of the old Walter W. French Junior High School into apartments and a childcare center. That building opened two years earlier than Eastern, was closed far longer than Eastern, and had a fire to boot.

Perhaps the best example of local preservation was downtown Lansing’s old Ottawa Street Power Station, which didn’t even have floors when efforts began to turn it into the internationally recognized building it is today.

As architectural writer Michael Lewis wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the preservation and re-use of Detroit's’ Michigan Central Station, which was in far worse condition than Eastern, “No building is too far gone as long as there are the resources and the will to do use them.”

Sadly, the Lansing State Journal failed in its fundamental responsibility to report the story from all perspectives, including the argument for preservation.

The Journal story says that taking photos or videos was prohibited as a condition of being granted a tour. But the story never says if it asked U M-Sparrow officials why the prohibition and what they said. This is an important question because it goes to the motive of granting the Journal a tour.

It reports certain costs (replacing boilers would cost $3 million to $4 million, for example). However, the story does not put any costs in the context of what they would cost in a new building. Let's assume less. How much less?

Nor does the story get a reaction from anyone opposed to demolishing the building in favor of preservation, such as an architect, to put costs in further context. Once again, the story ignores the most important argument for keeping the building: It is a landmark worth preserving. How much would that cost?

In contrast, the story does report M-Sparrow's contention that the psychiatric facility can only be built on Eastern's site:

“The former Eastern High School is the only site in Lansing that meets the criteria U-M Health-Sparrow seeks. The building is next to the Sparrow Emergency Department and has land that could be used for ' ‘calming outdoor clinical environment,’ a press release from the health care system said."

The story makes no effort to seek reaction from demolition opponents on that important point. Again, proponents of keeping, preserving and reusing Eastern have identified some 20 acres of empty space on UM-Sparrow's campus —some of it even closer to the emergency room.

The story goes on in the next paragraph to imply Sparrow originally acquired Eastern for the purpose of building a psychiatric facility: “These features were part of the reason the then-Edward W. Sparrow Hospital Association sought the 18 acres of land. In 2016, the Lansing School District sold the building to the association for $2.4 million.”

That is important news—if true. But it cites no source whatsoever to give what is almost certainly a misleading impression that Eastern was destined all along to be replaced by a psychiatric hospital.

The story then reports inaccurately why a tour for members of our committee has “stalled." Referring to Jim Lynch, president of the Eastern High School Alumni Association, the story says:

“Lynch said they were supposed to go on a tour with U-M Health-Sparrow, but after the health care system told them pictures and videos could not be taken in the space, those conversations stalled.”

That is simply untrue. I know because I was the point person on our committee for setting up the tour.

Margaret Dimond, UM-Sparrow's president, promised the tour at Joan Nelson's request. Nelson is the retired executive director of the Allen Neighborhood Center and one of the six members of our group who met with UM-Sparrow executives last month.

Dimond agreed on scheduling the tour for last Monday, but with conditions. She declined our requests to bring a photographer and a leading preservationist, Brenda Rigdon, executive director of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network and a preservation architect. I appealed, saying that it is important to have a professional preservationist's opinion of the building and photos to document “the good, the bad and the ugly," as I put it. UM-Sparrow stuck to its position, and we reluctantly went along because of the importance of seeing the interior for ourselves.

Then Council member Kost posted a report on Facebook that accurately stated UM-Sparrow’s conditions. UM-Sparrow took umbrage at his post and pulled the plug on the tour.

Once again, we wish the Journal had asked UM-Sparrow why it is unwilling to allow photographs. Dimond told us in an email that "isolated photos may create the wrong perceptions and impressions” (even though I gave my word that we would show “the good, the bad and the ugly”). If, as a reporter, I had been told no photos on a tour of a building for the purpose of seeing the building's condition, I would have, at a minimum, asked UM-
Sparrow why. The Journal reporter failed to ask this basic question, or if she did, she failed to report it.

The story goes on to cite various problems with the interior. But, again, there is no perspective from a preservation point of view. 

The story closes with UM-Sparrow’s intention to “save the parts of the building that are in good enough shape to give to alumni or other community members. The auditorium's lighting fixtures, wooden chairs and wooden wall decorations were examples of items the heath (sic) care system wants to make available,' said O'Malley (Connie O'Malley, UM Health-Sparrow's regional chief operating officer). As a reporter, I would have asked how genuine UM-Sparrow's interest is in preserving the "legacy" of Eastern, as it has repeatedly stated.

I do not pretend to be unbiased on this matter. I believe that Eastern should be preserved, that UM-Sparrow should build a mental health facility elsewhere on its campus and that our group hopes UM-Sparrow will genuinely consider preserving a landmark for one or more other uses. Or, if not, it could offer to sell it for development for housing or other purposes. It is particularly important to me that the auditorium be saved because there is nothing else like it in our community that does not already have a dedicated use. It would make an outstanding home for the Lansing Symphony Orchestra.

I realize some readers may think this is just sour grapes from the owner of the Journal’s only serious print competition. Sure, I wish City Pulse had gotten the tour first. And maybe I'm off base on a point or two.

However, despite my bias, I have tried to address the shortcomings of the Journal article in a fair manner based on my five-and-a-half decades of experience as a journalist.

I leave it to you to judge for yourself whether the Lansing State Journal story is credible.

(Berl Schwartz is the editor, publisher and founding owner of City Pulse.)