Newtown residents relieved by school's demolition - Polidicks

[quote] A task force of 28 Newtown elected officials voted unanimously in May to raze the school where 26 people were killed, and build a new one. NEWTOWN, Conn. — Neighbors of the elementary school where 20 children and six adults were shot dead last year expressed relief as workers tore down parts of it on Friday. Demolition of the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which began in earnest on Thursday, is expected to take several weeks. Bill Clark, who lives across the street, said he believes it's going to take a long time for the community to heal after the December shooting massacre, committed by a gunman who had killed his mother at home before going to the school and who later killed himself as police closed in. "We're a very strong community, and we're going to overcome this," Clark said. "We're going to move on, and they're going to put up another beautiful school and we're going to move on." A task force of 28 Newtown elected officials voted unanimously in May to raze the school and build a new one on the property where it's located. Newtown has accepted a $50 million state grant for the project, and a new school is expected to open by December 2016. Students have been attending classes in a neighboring town. Cliff Rothe, owner of the nearby Sandy Hook Diner, is among those who support the plan. "For the sake of the kids that were there, the teachers that will be there years even after the kids that were enrolled there then are gone, the teachers are still going to be there," he said. "It was an old school to begin with, so, yeah, tear it down and put a new one." [/quote] Source: [url]http://news.msn.com/us/newtown-residents-relieved-by-schools-demolition[/url] ...

On one hand, I don't understand how building a new school is going to help anything, but on the other hand, I've also never been a part of a situation like this.

[QUOTE=Skarr;42652673]On one hand, I don't understand how building a new school is going to help anything, but on the other hand, I've also never been a part of a situation like this.[/QUOTE] Just a way for closure of a very sensitive matter.

Not to mention, it's an obsolescent facility in need of replacement anyway, from what I've heard.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;42652709]Not to mention, it's an obsolescent facility in need of replacement anyway, from what I've heard.[/QUOTE] If that's true, then it makes a lot more sense to me. Maybe this is something I never [I]want[/I] to completely understand, though.

I know someone who lives in Newtwon (I live only about half an hour away) and according to him they were planning to shut down the school anyway even before the shooting.

Would you want to walk the corridors where friends and family were massacred?

[QUOTE=Skarr;42652715]If that's true, then it makes a lot more sense to me. Maybe this is something I never [I]want[/I] to completely understand, though.[/QUOTE] It sounds like you already understand. Something so terrible people don't even want to think about it, let alone teach classes with bullet holes behind the fixed drywall.

[QUOTE=SeamanStains;42652887]Would you want to walk the corridors where friends and family were massacred?[/QUOTE] Some people would pay money to do that.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42653180]Some people would pay money to do that.[/QUOTE] And they should be discouraged.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42653180]Some people would pay money to do that.[/QUOTE] "And here you can see where little Jimmy had his brains blown out" [editline]26th October 2013[/editline] Oh man I can't believe I just made that joke. I think I'm going to get off the internet now.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;42653223]And they should be discouraged.[/QUOTE] Not really, for some people to see their childs resting place it is a form of closure like destroying the school.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;42653233]"And here you can see where little Jimmy had his brains blown out" [editline]26th October 2013[/editline] Oh man I can't believe I just [B]made that joke[/B]. I think I'm going to get off the internet now.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Encyclopedia Dramatica;42653233]It's December 14th, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and a messy-haired youngling is drooling and making a glitter-covered seasonal card for mommy. His teacher walks past and ruffles the innocent tike's hair as he adds another piece of dried macaroni and dreams about meeting Santa Claus. Suddenly the child's face is blown off and his brains splatter across his Christmas card, adding the finishing touch. The person holding the smoking Bushmaster XM-15 rifle was Adam Peter Lanza, a 20-year-old aspie who saw that mass killings were the brave thing to do and decided to show he has the balls. Unlike other school shooter heroes, he shot a bunch of little kids who were too fucking retarded to know what 1 plus 1 is. Adam Lanza began his attempt at the high score by blasting his mother in half, probably because she just couldn't understand him, deleted all of his Taylor Swift porn and wanted to send him to a psychiatrist because she didn't have the spine to handle him. Lanza then went on to merrily murder a further twenty ugly and retarded children, and six boring teachers. He then shoved his gun in his own mouth and became an hero just as the puh-leez rolled up, and is currently partying in hell with Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Ted Bundy, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Hitler, Cho Seung-Hui and Satan.[/quote] you are fine.

Columbine is even more notorious, yet it's still a functioning school. First, I don't see the point of demolishing a school if you're just going to build another one on top of it. I would at least understand if they were going to demolish it and build a memorial or something on the grounds, but this defeats the purpose anyway. You can't just deconstruct a memory, everyone is still going to know. Changing the scenery a little bit doesn't help the fact, it's denial at best and delusional at worst. Second, the motives for this are questionable. Of course it's a gruesome site to behold. Of course the residents are relieved it's sort of going away. What else could they possibly (publicly) feel about it? But it's almost like what they're doing - getting rid of the evidence of tragedy - isn't even for the community which it affected. It's like it's there as a consolation for the masses: Look, this never happened. But we'll still remember. I don't need a conciliatory gesture to validate my feelings that it was a tragedy. My morals aren't a novelty.