Talk:Central Elementary School (Albemarle, North Carolina)

Is this building notable?

(Note: This was discussion elsewhere about the draft article, copied to here for a complete record, which is good)--doncram I've worked hard on User:Vchimpanzee/Central Elementary School (Albemarle, North Carolina) today so I hope it qualifies as notable, even though it's only an elementary school. It was a high school at one time. I think I asked you once before to look at the information I had found but I never heard back. I'll check your talk page archives.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:37, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Just so you'll know, I have yet to find the general history, but I was going through the local library's file of newspaper articles for information that would establish notability as well as the progress of renovation. I knew they took a lot longer than they had planned to.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:39, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Nothing in your archive that I know of. Maybe I asked someone else. I don't remember what I did with the information on the building being honored. When I find it I'll add it.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Vchimpanzee. I added a few things to the article. It seems good to me, it seems like you have supported its notability as a Wikipedia article topic. Good luck with it. The AFC article process is really slow these days, it would be nice if someone would just move it to mainspace. You could do that yourself, i think, while I can't, currently. --doncram 01:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to move the article into mainspace, but I think it needs some work first. The original building was constructed in 1924? It was a high school? Named Central High School? And now it's being sold by the city after being relocated and renoavated? It was also used as an elementary school, and was set for demolition when a new elementary school was constructed? Does the new elementary school include some of the original old buildings? It's all a little muddled. Candleabracadabra (talk) 01:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it and commenting. I hope i didn't muck up the situation by confusing a high school vs. an elementary school. What i added was about an "Old Central School". There could be a difference that I am not aware of. Vchimpanzee must be able to make any necessary distinctions on that, i hope, and fix any error i introduced. Thanks again. --doncram 01:41, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say it was ready. I have to include some more details. Obviously if you are still confused about the two buildings, I have to add more. But I just needed to make sure the topic itself is notable. I will move it to mainspace myself once I am sure I can. thanks to both of you.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you did. I had no idea I had left out so much information that you had no idea what was going on, and there are definitely changes coming to make the article clear. I'm not sure how to proceed on this, but I'm in the process of finding what I need.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is one of the sources. Christine Dwyer is quoted in the draft as well, but her quote came from the newspaper. I'm still searching for where the school was honored.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is another source. I have my doubts about one of the dates, so let's not use it because I will find something better. I'm not certain exactly how to incorporate the architectural information into the draft, but with nearly everything supported by newspaper articles, it's probably safe to use the architect's information now.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Here and here are sources for the honor the building received. I'll try to add more from these sources, and then if you feel there is more to do, the two of you can use the information in the four sources how you wish in the section on the 1924 building. There is no "new school" since that is the 1924 building, two 1936 additions and another addition completed in 2007. Maybe the section heading can be renamed.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I see User:Candleabracadabra has been busy. The wording does look better and I think the facts are clearer at this point, so the right wording is easier to do. There was a in one of his/her additions, but everything is sourced, so I went back through the history to see what source I had given for each detail, and it was clear what source referred to what information, so I was able to fix the sources. I'm going to go to my other four sources now and see what I can do with them. What I am still missing is a complete history of each of the buildings. I'm not sure "preservation and renovation" is appropriate given that both buildings have to go through that process, and given that the 1924 building and its additions have a history prior to the work (I didn't even get around to saying students moved out of that building), but the "old" building has not.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the history, there was the possibility of adding URLs but I don't think that will be possible for a lot of them. Most newspaper web sites delete articles after a relatively short time, but this paper has kept articles around longer. It would be too much to hope for more than that.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:05, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I suppose we can trust the architect. I found a discrepancy, but it's possible the size of the addition was changed later. Surely the architect would know the size of the addition. Even if his site did refer to the "principle" of the school. There is one more source for the honor.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:25, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

We've established notability; now what?

I found a history of the school that occupied the historic building from 1958 (?) to 2003. I'm not certain we should trust it since the opening date in Fall 1925 for the first school to use the building. The 1924 date is used in every source. I'm going to look more closely. Meanwhile, I haven't found the history of the elementary school or clear dates of construction for its old buildings. I'll work on that in about a week. I'm through with the article for now. Unfortunately, I've found all the online resources we can use. There is another online resource I can't access today, but I won't be at that library for another week. Chances are it won't add anything.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I moved the article to article space, but I wasn't pleased with what I found. There are two separate schools, and their histories MUST be kept separate in order for people to understand what happened. Anyone who reads the article as it was before I fixed it just now is going to have NO idea what is going on. I'm not saying it is ideal now, but it can't be the other way.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll try to add some details here to make clear what is going on. I don't have sources for everything, so to explain all this in the article would either be original research or just plain weird.

First, we have a building that opened in 1925 whose historic qualities have been extensively discussed and are summarized in the article.

The gym, of course, is part of what makes the school historic. I had said "building" but if you want to regard each addition as a "building" I guess that's fine. It is a "school" but it has now been four different schools in its history, though Junior High and Middle are essentially the same thing.

There is a football stadium on the site. One can draw the conclusion that until a new stadium was built in 1978, even though the high school had already moved to a totally new location in 1958, the high school played its games at the junior high until then.

And, of course, if the high school moved to a new location in 1958, the building (s) became the junior high. And later a middle school, though I don't have a date for that change.

The decision was made to build a new middle school in a totally different location.

At that point, there was an existing Central Elementary with one old building (older than the historic building called Albemarle Middle School) with two later additions. It was next to the Albemarle Middle School and the oldest building was in really bad shape. Central had its own history which I haven't been able to find, but I did read at one time. The decision was whether to build the new Central Elementary on the site of the current Albemarle Middle School, or to renovate the Albemarle Middle School to make it an elementary school, or to do something else.

With the new Albemarle Middle School completed, they decided to renovate and add on, tearing down what wasn't worth saving.

When the renovation and addition were completed, Central Elementary moved and the old Central Elementary stood empty and continues to.

So how do we say all that in the article?— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:46, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Candleabracadabra is still confused. I don't think this person should edit the article, because in my opinion, the only major changes this person has made have been neither constructive nor informative. Some minor changes by this person were an improvement. The bigger issue is that if I can't explain the situation to him/her, the article is not serving its purpose. It is a very unusual situation for a school, but it is not unusual in Wikipedia to have a historic building that has changed names. In this case the "new" name is that of a school which occupied one location for over one hundred years, and after its original location became unsuitable, the idea was to use another old building, this one in much better shape, as a new location for that school. That school's earlier history certainly deserves mention here, because of the article's name. And the building is still there. I have a new idea for sources for this history that I hadn't thought of. Google and Bing wouldn't have been any help because this source is behind a paywall. But I can get in, starting this Wednesday.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)