Price of Neglect

As if it were not enough to be one of the ugliest cities in the U.S., Pawtucket, R.I. (pop. 81,000) has in the past also been one of the most corrupt. Under the long rule of Democratic Mayor Thomas P. McCoy, its school buildings crumbled with neglect while Democratic bosses boasted of the city's low tax rate. But McCoy died. Though his successors in the city hall were also reluctant to allocate adequate sums for school repair, in 1954 Pawtucket got a school superintendent named Edmund J. Farrell who had an urge for reform. After months of wrangling. Farrell finally talked his school committee into calling in the Harvard University Center for Field Studies to make a survey of Pawtucket's schools.

Last fall 31 Harvard experts began their work, and were appalled at what they found. They were so alarmed that they issued an emergency interim report on safety alone. The report was a shocker: of the city's 23 school buildings, the Harvardmen said, 14 were so dangerous that they should be closed.

In the buildings, most built around the turn of the century, ceilings are falling, stairways have started to pull away from the walls. Window casements are rotting, beams sagging. In the Broadway school, the Harvardmen noted that "classroom floors vibrate when walked upon." Some of the windows that lead to the fire escapes in the Prospect school are either screened or nailed shut; Middle Street and Pidge schools have no fire escapes at all. Six schools have no sprinkler system. Of the Cottage school the Harvardmen warned: "Any internal fire that would cause the collapse of the wooden staircases could trap children on all floors with no other means of escape."

In spite of the report--and the fact that fire broke out in one school in January--Boss McCoy's successors firmly opposed closing the schools. Mayor Lawrence A. McCarthy complained of foreigners poking into Pawtucket's business, and suggested darkly that if this sort of thing went on, there would soon be demands to tear down every school building in the state more than 50 years old. Not until the state board of education finally approved a compromise did McCarthy & Co. give up. Last week the order went out to close nine schools and to put the displaced pupils on half-day sessions elsewhere. Next problem for Pawtucket's politicos: how to raise at least $500,000 to do the things that ought to have been done years ago.

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