The old Bell High School, formerly the Powell Junior High School, behind the DCUSA retail complex on Hiatt Place NW, may soon be demolished. The school has been replaced by a new one, and lies vacant and gutted, awaiting the wrecking ball and replacement by an athletic field for the new school. It seems to me this pre-war sturdy old brick structure, with attractive contrasting bands of buff-colored brickwork and a dentil molding, should be preserved and reused instead of being razed. The trim around the doors and windows is pretty nice, and I like the hint of crenelation above the main entrance. It would make for a nice residential building, office space, charter school or some other adaptive reuse, only 1 block from the Metro. Picture it without the white security grates over the windows on the ground floor. I'm surprised the National Trust for Historic Preservation or the DC Preservation League aren't on the case.

Who needs athletic fields, anyway? School sports only lead to unrealistic dreams of professional athletic careers, and let's not forget the inevitable brutalization of the weak by the strong in gym class. Dodgeball is nothing more than state-sanctioned bullying, you can lose an eye in a towel-snapping incident in the locker room, and there's the trauma of being picked last in team sports. They already have an outdoor basketball court next to the school, and presumably a gym inside, so it's time for the jocks to let the nerds win a round. Seriously, why not make it a magnet school, or a computer science lab?

The old brick school has survived years of neglect, 1960s riots, and budget cuts over the years. It has "good bones" as they say. They don't build them like that anymore. Let's not tear it down.

Thanks for the mention in the morning roundup, City Paper!