Thew Lulac Edition #4, 796, August 31st, 2022

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo.

 This week the Times Leader outlines the great partnership between King’s College and the city of Wilkes-Barre. The college recently began getting the old Times Leader building ready for occupancy. This editorial chronicles the special relationship among the school, the paper and the residents both serve. That’s this week’s “Write On Wednesday”.  

KING’S COLLEGE CONTRIBUTES TO THE ECONOMIC, CULTURAL LIFE OF DOWNTOWN WILKES-BARRE

These stories shouldn’t be about us.

Over the past many months, we have used our weekly Diamond City Partnership/Downtown Rebound page to talk with officials from downtown Wilkes-Barre businesses and institutions about why they chose center city as their place of operation, why they’ve stayed, and how they have rebounded from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the local economy.

Their words, their experiences are what matter, not our opinions. We have used these pages to provide a forum for those with stories of survival and resilience to tell. We hope those stories have been informative for all and helpful for the downtown business community, whose success is vital to the entire region. But again, we aim to tell those stories as impartially as possible: Let the people speak for themselves.

With this week’s piece, our views — and our story — are going to creep into the picture a bit, but there is a good reason.

In the accompanying column, King’s College President Rev. Thomas P. Looney talks about his dedication to the institution’s mission, as well as King’s commitment to downtown Wilkes-Barre. It’s a commitment our organization shares, being a fellow downtown institution with over a century of history.

King’s story and our story overlap in many ways, as we were recently reminded during a tour of the former Times Leader building on North Main Street.

King’s College purchased the historic building for $725,000 in 2018 after the Times Leader moved a few blocks to 90 E. Market St., and plans to have the building ready to house a doctoral program in occupational therapy — the first doctoral program for King’s — in time for the 2024 fall semester.

At the urging of Times Leader history columnist — and King’s alum — Tom Mooney, we were led through the building by Father Looney and Tom Butchko, King’s associate vice president of facilities. The purpose was to see it one more time before it is well and truly gutted.

At the outset, Father Looney paused to give remarks about the project, and the building’s transformation from journalism to science education — or from deadlines to dissection, as I quipped to a few colleagues.

“The project that we’re engaging in here, in the former Times Leader building, is so important to us, and so important to our future, and to our way of embracing the broader community,” he said.

“This building is so much a part of the history of the city of Wilkes-Barre,” Father Looney said, adding for the current and former Times Leader staffers that it holds memories “of the sacred work that you do.”

Some of us did chuckle — respectfully — bearing in mind how daily life at a newspaper often feels much more profane than sacred, but Father Looney’s thoughtful and gracious remarks hit home.

And as he mentioned, it wasn’t the first time King’s had repurposed a sacred space.

When King’s renovated the former Memorial Presbyterian Church for use as the new Chapel of Christ the King, Father Looney said, members of the Presbyterian congregation were invited to visit the rededicated space, where many warm memories poured forth.

Likewise when we visited our old headquarters.

That visit was poignant, also, because there were several King’s graduates in the group. Colleague Mary Therese Biebel, who is one of them, pointed out that there currently are several King’s alums on our staff, and have been many over the years. We’re not naming them here just so we don’t inadvertently forget anyone!

It’s just another reminder of King’s physical and symbolic footprint — as a dominant institution in downtown Wilkes-Barre, and through its ranks of graduates in Luzerne County and beyond.

Father Looney’s column reminds us of some of the college’s key re-developments in recent years. I’d like to recap them and others here:

• Richard Abbas Alley Center for Health Sciences: Previously known as “King’s on the Square,” the Alley Center occupies the former Ramada Hotel on Public Square. King’s purchased the former hotel and spent $17 million for complete renovations that created student resident space in the upper floors with classrooms and other education space on the lower floors. The building houses the physician assistant studies, exercise science and athletic training programs.

As part of its ongoing reevaluation of campus activities and investments, King’s initially had a bistro called Zime in part of the first floor, but switched food service contractors and managed to draw in Wyoming Valley’s first Chick-fil-A.

King’s also converted part of the lobby to house a permanent display of local artist Sue Hand’s expansive “The Anthracite Miners and Their Hollowed Ground,” and carved out enough space next to the building to make a Miners Memorial Wall of Honor.

• Mulligan Engineering Center: Built in 1907, the former Spring Brook Water Supply Co. on Franklin Street was long a dormant shell. In 2019, King’s rededicated it as home to the college’s expanding civil and mechanical engineering programs. At that dedication, Fred Pettit, vice president of institutional advancement, called it “one of the most important academic buildings in our history, and one of the most important to our future,” while state Sen. John Yudichak referred to the project as a $6 million “game changer.”

• Christ the King Chapel: That same year, King’s opened the former Presbyterian church as its own chapel with a ceremony and a Mass of Dedication. Located next to the next to the George and Giovita Maffei Family Commons, the former church had been closed for about a decade prior to its refurbishment and reopening.

• New bookstore: Last year, King’s opened its own standalone bookstore on North Main Street, in the former S&W Restaurant across the street from the gym.

During his comments near the end of the ceremony, Looney called the building part of the school’s “heritage” because many students and staff had met and dined at the restaurant for years.

Kind words for that project and others flowed during the ceremony.

Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown, a King’s alum, praised the work King’s has done in helping update and renovate the downtown, saving old buildings and putting them to new use.

State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre said King’s and Wilkes University have created numerous new programs in renovated or new buildings “to the point it improves the outside image of Wilkes-Barre.”

Absolutely.

I am neither a native nor a King’s graduate, though I did attend Niagara University, different Catholic-affiliated college in a different state. The mission and overall feel of King’s are familiar to me, with one key difference: Niagara was a suburban campus, while King’s is in the heart of Wilkes-Barre. It would have changed the whole character of my college years, to be sure.

As we all work to keep downtown Wilkes-Barre a vibrant place and rebound from the pandemic, the ongoing efforts put forth by King’s are important steps to generating foot traffic for center city and promoting the image of a progressive, hardworking community with top-notch higher education facilities, of which King’s is just one.

Its dedication to adaptive reuse of historic structures — likewise with crosstown rival Wilkes University — enhances the character of this beautiful city.

We can’t wait to see our old building when it is finally ready for its new role.