Old YMCA Should Be Reopened
In reference to the article Tuesday, "Get up off the Couch," this quote impressed me: "A variety of exercises are not only safe for older people but have enormous advantage in delaying some diseases and disabilities."

This truth has relevance to the current discussion before the City Council as to whether to spend a huge amount money for a requested new office building for the Parks Department or rather to save some money by purchasing the abandoned YMCA building at Coolspring and Jackson.

I and many others believe the latter is the way to go. It has a central location and access to public transportation. In addition to the required Parks Department office space, the wonderful community facilities could be reopened for everyone - the gymnasium, the swimming pool, an impressive array of exercise equipment, as well as restoring space for the successful day-care program for children.

I was for many years a frequent enjoyer of the swimming pool, but now I have to drive to Chesterton, with gas at $4 a gallon, to use the Duneland Health and Wellness Center, where I often see other refugees from the collapsed YMCA facility. I have often seen many aquatic exercise classes for the elderly and swimming classes for children.

There were vibrant programs for teenagers, a seldom vacant gym and many folks using the first class exercise machines. It was a great asset for the health of the whole community as well as a great place for socialization for the elderly.

How could you not help but be in favor of this wonderful project for the enjoyment and good health of adults, teens and children?

Please let your local council member know about your opinion.

The Rev. Charles E. Doyle

Michigan City

La Porte YMCA To Take City's Y Territory
Announcement from the national association expected today.

Jason Miller
The News-Dispatch

LA PORTE - The La Porte Family YMCA will be awarded the territory once covered by the Michigan City Family YMCA, according to a spokesman from the YMCA of the United States.

Officials hope the move will allow the La Porte YMCA to eventually cover all of La Porte County.

"That's our goal, eventually," La Porte Y Executive Director and CEO Cindy Berchem said Wednesday. "We haven't officially heard from national yet, but I can say we're certainly trying to get that territory.

"Michigan City is an area that needs a YMCA."

National spokesman Brad McDermott said Wednesday the national committee on membership standards will meet today and agree to notify the La Porte Family YMCA that it received the territory.

Michigan City Family YMCA lost the territory last year after it lost its national charter. The YMCA shut down last August due to financial issues that caused utilities to be shut off.

The YMCA building, 1001 E. Coolspring Ave., requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs as well, according to records requested by the Michigan City Parks Department and provided to The News-Dispatch.

McDermott said the committee follows a process in deciding who should receive a lost territory. Both the La Porte Family YMCA and the Duneland YMCA in Chesterton were interested in the territory.

"When an area is vacated, there's a process we go through to determine which one is best positioned to serve that community," he said. "We look at their leadership and location and their history. Things like that."

Berchem said the first thing the La Porte Y will do if awarded the territory is look for a facility in which children going to day camp at La Lumiere can wait for a bus.

Currently, day campers are brought to the Y in La Porte and bussed to the northern La Porte County boarding school. Michigan City children will be able to attend day camp, but getting to La Porte to catch the bus could be a problem.

"We're looking for a location where the kids can be dropped off and wait for the bus, then be let off after camp and wait for their ride home," Berchem said. "We'd like a place for a couple hours in the morning and in the afternoon."

Berchem said her organization would like, eventually, to serve all of La Porte County, but until a final decision is made, that possibility isn't feasible.

"We're kind of in limbo," she said.

Contact Jason Miller at jmiller@thenewsdispatch.com.

"Michigan City is an area that needs a YMCA."

Enough said.

It does need some rehab work, but the cost for that would still be significantly less than building a new office/pool house facility at the lakefront for the MC Park & Rec folks.

The Park Departments $5.6 million has no pool house. Office space, meeting room, bath house and maybe a concession stand.

Any news on this front?

In two words, "not yet."

There are other "problems" afoot.

Old Y Sits In Dark And Decays
On the south side of Coolspring Avenue, a couple of blocks west of Woodland Avenue, behind old trees and a deep, empty parking lot, sits the hulk of what was the Michigan City Family YMCA. On a July day in 2007, NIPSCO shut off the building's electricity for non-payment of past-due bills.

The lights went off abruptly, as did the heater for the pool . Office computers plunged into oblivion. The Y's small staff searched for flashlights to find their belongings and flee.

The building today - long, deep and squat, a drab testament to utilitarian architecture - is devoid of human life.

Does this derelict have ghosts? Last year, before the building was closed, night intruders broke in on several occasions, smashing glass and stealing petty cash.

What could thieves steal, though? Old rusty barbells from the upstairs weight room? They could get hernias trying to hoist the treadmills and nearly immovable Nautilus equipment from the subterranean "cardio room." They could sprain their ankles in the dark by tripping on the frayed carpet that is now, as then, patched here, there and almost everywhere with duct tape.

They might haul out a couple of old doctor's scales from the locker rooms, roll out the refrigerator from the kitchen, while stripping the cupboards of stale coffee and crackers and maybe an unopened jar of grape jelly. This wouldn't be cheerful work, not unlike chipping out the fillings from a corpse's teeth.

No, there is not much to take from this derelict. There never was.

The only things of real value were stolen a year ago: the laughter of children as they scrambled out of old YMCA buses for a day of not overly supervised fun; the roughhouse jollity of muscular young men playing half-court basketball; the grunts and splashes of old women, and at least one old man, paddling for their health in an early morning aquatic exercise class; the occasional bang and clang of weights being hefted and released; the squeaky wheels of the janitor's supply cart as he made his rounds; the moan of an antique vacuum cleaner as it tried valiantly to suck up dirt; the murmur of the part-time janitor as he practiced Spanish numerals while pushing a long dust broom up and down the basketball court.

If there is any light today in the black, cavernous interior of this derelict, it is falling from the skylights onto that basketball court. It may illuminate unseen layers of un-mopped dust, but it can bring no sparkle to un-dropped droplets of good, fresh sweat.

R.E. Roderick

Michigan City

so what is going on with the petitions to make the parks dept hq there?

anybody interested call me at 879-3772 Michael

Parks should acquire YMCA
Doesn't the Michigan City Park Board feel it is demeaning to continue squabbling like a bunch of pre-schoolers to pick up the cast-offs of the school district? The Park Department is allowed to use facilities IF the school isn't using them. And another: How much notice must the schools give the parks? A year? A week? That could make planning activities a real delight!

Park Department: Solve the problem with your own building - the YMCA building! I cannot imagine that Centier Bank would not be willing to negotiate the $463,342.42 unpaid mortgage, especially since the property went back on the tax rolls in December with an assessed valuation of $1,594,400. The amount attributable to the land is $116,000 The $1,478,400 remainder is the assessed value of the building.

Let's see, at 33,081 square feet, that's a little under $45 per square foot.

I'm not an appraiser or a contractor, but I do know that you can't put up a stick-built house for $45 a square foot.

Yes, the building needs a lot of work. A million dollars worth is probably understating it. But last year the department announced its intent to issue bonds to build a new office building at the lakefront.

The former park superintendent wanted to be near the beach for summer safety reasons. That would give them an office and a place for the lifeguards to store their gear and hang out in a storm!

The YMCA property would give them office space, meeting rooms AND two gyms, a racquetball court and a swimming pool. A pool where the department could sponsor swimming lessons, life-saving classes for future life guards, income from rentals by hosts of pool parties.

Folks could have water therapy, exercise and lap swimming (not everyone's a runner!). It's a crime that a city the size of Michigan City has only one swimming pool and that one with very limited public access.

A facility for beach patrol and lifeguard gear? Use a trailer! You could remove it at the end of the summer and you would not have to excavate it from the sand that's blown in over the winter!

The new splash park is a great idea. It will be a big summer draw for parents of young children, but you can't give the kiddies swimming lessons in it!

A year-round recreational facility in the well-located East Coolspring Avenue location would be a facility for all the people. Get Centier Bank in negotiations. Now!

By the way, how about an attempt to increasing your area (and your tax base) to the boundaries

of the school district?

Janet Greenwald

Michiana Shores

I was thinking last night that the YMCA could reopen at Elston. They got everything needed, pool, gym, classrooms, kitchen, field etc..

I was thinking they should raze the YMCA and Elston, less chance for vagrants over time.

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jesse B @ Mar 28 2014, 03:15 PM) </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I was thinking they should raze the YMCA and Elston, less chance for vagrants over time.
The YMCA on Coolspring is owned by a private individual now. Don't know what he plans on doing with it.