If you happen to live in Harbor Point or the Peninsula, you’re probably familiar with the Athletic Center interior staircase detour. The Catherine Clark Athletic Center is located on the southwest side of campus, and has an exterior and interior staircase that leads up to the campus plaza.Until a few weeks ago, you were able to walk freely up and down the right side of the exterior staircase. However, the left side of the exterior staircase has been blocked off from use since last year. As a Harbor Point resident myself, I found this very inconvenient and frankly stupid. Why should I have to go inside the building to use the stairs and do all this extra walking for no reason? (Monday morning logic.)
The answer is predicable: safety issues. According to the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management, Dorothy F. Renaghan, the exterior Athletic Center staircase is “beyond its useful life” and will continue to be “closed while we evaluate our options.” Some of these options include: cementing a new concrete base for the stairs, rebuilding wood stairs over the old concrete base, or completely demolishing the stairs along with the rest of the plaza. The new staircase must be safe and also cost efficient, so there are many possibilities to be considered.
Because the University of Massachusetts Boston is planning to demolish the plaza within a few short years, they might consider taking down the exterior Athletic Center staircase with it as well.
It is not only an inconvenience to have to go through the whole building just to climb up a flight of stairs, but some of the school’s athletes don’t take a liking to “NARPs” walking through “their” building. One UMass Boston athlete tweets at the @UMBProblems twitter account, “@DanniMarotto: @UMBProblems why the hell are the stairs by Clark blocked off! Too many NARPS walking in the athletic center #JustNo #OverWhelmed”
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a NARP is referred to as a “non-athletic regular person.” Although meant offensively, there is really nothing wrong with not being an athlete. Just saying.
Too bad for Miss Marotto and other discriminatory Division III athletes alike, the exterior Clark Athletic Center staircase will remained closed, indefinitely.
The daily athletic center detour
October 31, 2013