the need for a community center building where recitals and winter and indoor recreational activities could be held and where the members of the community might meet for fellowship and discussions of community needs. Public school buildings and college gymnasiums were helping to meet the need but facilities were inadequate.

Two years ago the Greensboro Recreation Commission, of which Daniel Neal is director, the city manager, the Reverend R. T. Weatherby, civic leader, and engineers and workers of WPA began planning for a new recreation center. Funds were provided by the city and WPA for the building which cost $60,000.

Last August the building and swimming pool were completed. There were opening day ceremonies and celebrations which included dedicatory exercises, a water exhibition, and a inspection of the new plant. Thousands of people attended, including city, school and WPA officials, community leaders and members of the community. The new center was named the Windsor Community Center and Pool in memory of the late William Windsor, who in years gone by had worked indefatigably to provide wholesome recreation facilities and activities for the city. It was a momentous day for Greensboro. At last the Negroes of the Gate City had seen their dreams come true!

The Summer Swimming Program

The center began its brief summer program of activities, which lasted only 24 days, with swimming and water activities in the beautiful, spacious pool, opening with a gala swimming and diving exhibition at night when 2,000 people gathered under the gleaming flood lights to see the spectacle. The pool, which is 100 feet wide and 175 feet long with a depth of from 2 to II feet, is well equipped with diving boards and towers, filters, pumps, a chlorinator and a draining system. The basket room contains 1,000 hangers to accommodate as many bathers in a day. In planning for dressing rooms a partition

was set up in the center of the auditorium of the building dividing the floor into two parts, one for use as dressing rooms for women, the other for men. Cocoa matting was laid on the floors. As the men's and women's shower rooms and lavatories have convenient openings to the auditorium on the respective sides, this use of the floor space proved exceedingly practical and satisfactory.

The staff personnel of the swimming pool numbered twenty volunteer and regular workers, including four Red Cross life guards, cashier, locker room attendants, inspectors of bathers, a director and an assistant. A total of 5,000 bathers and 16,000 visitors attended the pool and grounds in 24 days.

The public supported the pool whole-heartedly and it became the talk of the city. A fee of 20 cents for adults and 10 cents for children was charged bathers, with half price on ladies' day and boys' day and special rates to groups, clubs and picnickers. The pool was open from ten in the morning to ten o'clock at night, the swimming season concluding on Labor Day with a group of about 400 people taking a final plunge. Music sent through amplifiers from a combination phonograph and radio in the office added to the delights of swimming.

Twenty local and near-by churches held picnics and outings on the grounds surrounding the center which provide tennis and paddle tennis courts, playgrounds, picnic grounds and baseball diamonds.

A Rich Indoor Program

With the close of the swimming season, arrangements were made at once for indoor recreation and civic activities. The partition separating women's and men's dressing rooms was taken down, mats were rolled up, and ball and game courts were marked on the floor. Both club rooms and office were arranged to accommodate club activities, handcraft groups and educational classes. A public mass meeting to introduce the indoor program of activities to members of the community was held at

(Continued on page 509)

A

THE GIANT floodlights flashed on, they revealed a spectacle of colorful pageantry when the entrance parade

of Chico's 1936 playground circus started its dignified march. From the opinions of the early comers who were drafted to help pin up paper costumes or smear grease paint on hundreds of excited children in the hub-bub of back stage preparation, to the unasked for praise of several civic leaders and the outspoken platitudes of the newspaper reporters, the circus was declared an outstanding success.

Hundreds of parents traveled home happy and proud of their performing offspring; countless numbers who helped in the dressing or served in the concessions went home tired but pleased at sharing the success of a community venture. In the traffic delays caused by the attempts of a third of the city's population to get home from the circus at the same time, people who had seen nothing of the color of recreational art before remarked at the brilliancy of the costumes made from paper and cheese cloth and colored with calsomine. They drove home amused by the fun of the acts, pleased that the towns' children could take part in such an enterprise. The circus of

1936 was a success, even in the balancing of its profit and loss sheet. In an after-circus party for the circus director, bigger and better plans were laid for 1937.

As was the case a year ago, the day of the 1937 circus was sweltering and the evening warm. Again the cool football turf seemed to refresh the waiting crowd packed into the grandstand and the rows and rows of portable bleachers. The three rings repeated their successes of countless children in clever acts, as the bigger circus of 1937 got under way. Amazed, a breathless crowd watched the opening parade-a parade that was longer, more colorful and with more variety than the previous year. Seventeen acts involving hundreds of lines and actions climaxed themselves in one grand tableau that rivaled professionalism. Eight elephants, eight zebras, sixteen horses, as compared to four elephants, two zebras, and four horses, show detail changes that characterize the total changes of the circus. More concessions, bigger painted back drops, larger side shows, expansion in every detail-a bigger circus this year. Again at the end of the show people rushed to congratulate the directors, exclaiming that it was the greatest show ever!

496

But we knew better!

It was Too Big!

From those final, frantic moments of getting everything ready for the opening we knew that we had made a mistake. Our show was too big! With mouth full of pins and with needle in hand, the director looked at the makeup assistant and her assistants, at the lines of excited, ever-moving children awaiting their turn to be made up, and nodded her head as much as to say, "what in the world are we going to do with them?" More help was needed; more diplomacy was imperative. The leaders furnished it! Last minute scurrying for costume repairs or properties, and hurried searches for performers through the masses of children backstage, proved without a doubt that our show was so big that it was cumbersome!

In '36 we vowed that on top of our success we would double our show in '37. Ambition nearly worked us to death! Doubling the size did more than double the work. More costumes, more materials, more equipment, and more instruction gave the task of putting on our doubly-big circus four times its previous difficulty. Our art leaders needed child help in the craft classes to paint costumes; our dramatic leaders needed many of the same children to work on their routines, and mothers claimed that we were stealing all the children's hours. Two leaders would seek the same piano, and the directors were using every bit of all their diplomatic powers to keep everybody happy in the final hours of preparation. Each leader's teaching load was tripled and consequently their hours increased; other phases of the regular playground and community program were neglected.

Our largest problem came in the middle of our last month of rehearsals as one of the directors of dance, dramatics, art and tumbling came to the circus director for a skit re-write. Something had to be done for the children who were not skilled enough to keep up with the routines that the average youngster could learn. Last minute revision of acts thrust in many parts that were purely background sections. It had to be, yet it was difficult to explain to parents that their children were unable to learn fast enough to keep up with the average. It had not dawned on us before that such a circumstance would arise. It arises in

athletic teams regularly; in music classes; in dramatic classes. But in each of these instances the poor performer was shoved into the reserve list. We, on the other hand, were pledged to use all who wanted to participate!

And Costs Were Doubled

The ballyhoo, news stories, and the three rings remained the same in their cost as in 1936, but all other expenses were doubled. To prepare for a double crowd we had to transport movable bleacher seats which meant more emergency labor costs than ever before. The larger equipment meant more time for installation and more cost. Twice the number of costumes made the purchase of twice the amount of material necessary. With all the considerable help of the NYA and WPA much additional labor had to be hired. As the first rehearsal of our show under the lights showed us that we would have to have at least two dress rehearsals, we found our light bills tripled over that of last year.

As our show went off, we estimated that our cost was slightly more double that of the 1936 show. Our income is made by taking a collection and by the selling of the concession materials and side-show attractions; thus we are able to keep within our policy of free public recreation. To keep our books balancing for our '37 show we would have to gross over twice our last year's receipts. Approximately one-third of our incorporated city limit population attended our '36 show. We dared not hope we could double our attendance but we planned to seat and stand onehalf the city's adults. We had them too, but we found no relationship between the collections taken from one-third the city as compared to onehalf the city. The "take" was only slightly above that of '36, so we went royally in the hole.

True, though, our taxpaying citizens received a pleasing view of its newest public service, so from that viewpoint we were quite satisfied with our double circus. But next year we plan to polish and cut, using the surplus children in the concessions and side shows, and we will have a better show more efficiently operated, with a profit and loss sheet at the end of the year showing only black.

So don't double your show until you have considered the scope of your community and playgrounds!

W

HEN THE ANNEX was added to the Corn

wall, New York, High School in 1929, the voters were promised its use as a community center. During the depression there came an increased demand from young people leaving school for the opportunity to continue in the evenings the activities they had previously enjoyed at the school.

The population of the school district is about 2,500, 800 of whom are voters. From surrounding areas about 6,000 people may be drawn upon for center activities. Many, of Scotch or English origin, are connected with the carpet mill or with other industrial plants. There are six schools, public and private, five churches, a hospital, a farming area, a sprinkling of professional people, the characteristic Main Street population, and a few more or less affluent summer residents. Apart from a handful of chronic objectors, the people of the community have a strong social consciousness, shrewd intelligence and a desire to achieve the best possible in community accomplishment.

The First Steps Are Taken

The demand for basketball in the gymnasium led early this year to the appointment of a committee of the Board of Education to study the situation. At its May meeting the board approved the committee's report authorizing a referendum vote. Letters were sent to each of the fifty-six organizations in town inviting them to come to a meeting to discuss the organization of a community council, and notices were put in the papers. Everyone interested in community welfare, it was announced, would be eligible for membership in the council. To a representative gathering explanation was made of what a community center would mean, why Cornwall needed it, and the following statement of board policy was made:

"The District Board of Education must maintain full legal responsibility for school property and all that transpires therein or thereon.

By ETHEL BURNS BREED Chairman, Recreation Committee Board of Education Cornwall, New York

"The Board of Education resolutely refuses to have activities of the Community Center in any way encroach upon the successful fulfillment of the regular school program.

"Inasmuch as the school staff of faculty and building custodians have their working energies fully occupied by the day-school program, the duties of the Community Center shall in no way devolve upon them."

The National Recreation Association helped with advice and a speaker. One large and several informal meetings were held, a commencement speaker talked on the subject, and six seniors held a panel discussion on their future use of leisure time. Pamphlets were distributed and a house-to-house campaign was made.

A successful referendum vote resulted in securing the $2,000 asked for. The referendum read:

"Shall the District, in order to authorize the use of the school building, its facilities and equipment for a Community Center, appropriate a sum not to exceed $2,000 and not less than $1,200 to cover all expenses incidental to the supervision, operation and maintenance of same, for as long as the appropriation lasts?"

With the vote successfully accomplished, the Community Council elected its executive committee of five members to cooperate with the committee of the Board of Education. Acting jointly, they approved the following budget which was later ratified by the board:

OCTOBER I-APRIL 1, 1938
Director's salary
Building Custodian
Heat, light, etc.
Incidental expenses

(Continued on page 510)

$ 900.

390.

450.

260.

$2,000.

Question: There is an area in one of our parks that has been set aside for surfacing with concrete, apparently for roller skating during the summer and ice skating during the winter. Further, we have some idea of putting a tennis court in the center section during the summer months which could be removed during the winter, when the entire area would be flooded for ice skating. Have you available information on some such project now in operation, the difficulties encountered and similar information?

I should also like to receive any data you have on the success of bituminous tennis courts. -Clarence H. Hoper, City Manager, Alliance, Nebraska.

Answer: The plan of flooding concrete tennis courts for ice skating is a practicable one and is now in operation in many cities. Net posts can be removed without difficulty and since backstops do not have to be removed when the area is used only for ice skating and tennis, no particular difficulties are encountered. Single courts are sometimes flooded, but since a larger area is more desirable for ice skating a battery of two or more courts is preferable for this combination use.

Where facilities for roller skating are provided they are usually separate from the tennis court, the reason for this being that the roller skating season coincides with the spring and fall tennis season. Whether or not it is practical to have a separate area for roller skating depends on the popularity of this sport and the proximity of the park or playground to the neighborhood to be served. In a few cities large wading pools are used for roller skating in the spring and fall. In the opinion of recreation authorities when a special area is provided for roller skating the circular track is most satisfactory. In the plan you suggest you are apparently thinking of removing the tennis backstops when the proposed area is used. for ice skating. This would involve considerable expense and trouble. If the outside area you plan to use for roller skating were large enough it might not be necessary to remove the backstops provided the ice skating were restricted to the outside

area.

Another possible plan might be that described by the Portland Cement Association which involves a concrete space 112 feet long and 60 feet wide and may be used for tennis and ice skating. This is surrounded by a 10 foot strip of grass and outside this is a concrete strip 14 feet wide for use as a roller skating rink. If the inside court is not large enough to serve as an ice skating rink for the skaters in your community, the outside rink might also be used although it would be necessary to provide a curbing, and this would add considerably to the expense. A copy of this diagram may be secured from the Portland Cement Association, 33 West Grand Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, which can supply you with information on comparative costs and on technical features involved.

In recent years there has been a great deal of experimentation with various types of bituminous surfacing for tennis courts and other play areas. While these experiments have not progressed to the point where it is possible to recommend a standard type of surfacing, bituminous surfacing has found increasing favor among recreation executives. The less porous of these surfaces are suitable for flooding to make an area usable for both tennis and ice skating.

In a pamphlet entitled "Standard Courts for Tournament Play," published by the United States Lawn Tennis Association, 120 Broadway, New York City, a report is presented of a study made by that association for its members. The committee making the study recommended that for clubs having the financial resources to install and maintain them the first choice for a court for standard court play would be a patented, quick drying court. Some of the courts of this nature are En-Tout-Cas, Har-Tru and Rubico. The second choice would be good clay. For clubs desiring to eliminate upkeep, maintenance and groundsmen expense the first choice would be an asphaltcomposition court such as the La-Kold courts built by the American Bitumuls Company and the

Cork-Turf type of courts built by the Cork-Colprovia Company. This same recommendation was made for colleges, universities and high schools. (Continued on page 510)