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The New Y.M.C.C. Building

The New Y.M.C.C. Building image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
October
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

THE NEW Y.M.C.A. BUILDING Will Probably be Erected by Next September

THEY NOW ASK FOR BIDS

The Plans and Specifications Are All Ready and Have Been Approved -- A Fine Building.

It is fully expected by the Ann Arbor Y. M. C. A. that by next September they will have the building, for which plans were accepted last week, erected and ready for dedication.

The plans were made by Pond & Pond, of Chicago, and were accepted last Tuesday evening formally. During the summer, when all has been apparently quiet, the supporters of the movement have been busy getting their plans perfected and can now rest on their oars, assured that when the building is completed it will be surpassed by none in the country for the price paid. Twenty-five or thirty associations were consulted concerning the plans after they were drafted, and the committee attending to this work may congratulate itself that the plans were approved by the International Y. M. C. A. committee, whose headquarters are in New York. The Pond architects of Chicago spent an entire week here perfecting the plans after they had practically been finished in order to rive the needed attention to every little detail.

Pond & Pond have said that the architectural work for the plans now accepted will cost $35,000 and the Y. M. C. A. has already raised $22,700 in two ways - by personal donations, and the proceeds of the Star course given by them every winter. The subscriptions have amounted from 25 cents to $1,000 and with the amount now raised, if the architectural bids, which are to be accepted or rejected on Nov. 4, are anywhere near that amount, ground will be broken at once on Fourth avenue opposite the court house, where the association owns land.

The plan is to have no mortgage attached to the structure and the officials are positive that they will be able to avert that remote possibility. They will have to depend entirely on their own efforts to raise the money from citizens here -and by entertainments.

The building is to be 72x100 feet, consisting of three floors and a basement. The exterior will be of brick with stone trimmings which will be brown to match the buttresses, while the panels will be of red brick to contrast suitably with the brown. The track of regulation width will be 40x60 feet, making about sixteen laps to the mile. About fourteen shower baths will be placed in the basement, where the bowling alleys will be located. There will be no store or offices in the third floor, but dormitories will be fitted out for those of the Y. M. C. A. men who wish to reside there during the winter. Reading rooms and all the modern conveniences will be placed in the building.