Geezerphobia

When it comes to rational talk about the senior center, we've got TIF on the brain

by Walter Crockett

I come not to bury seniors but to praise them. Everything in due time.

With 20 percent of its people over 60 years of age, Worcester has one of the oldest populations in the country. Ninety-five percent of our seniors live independently.

You don't see them walking down Main Street like they did in their youth, because nobody walks anymore, especially along Main Street. But you do see them in silver-green Chevrolets and slate blue Buicks, peering over the top of their steering wheels on the way to the early-bird special at Barber's Crossing. You see them eating butterscotch sundaes at Friendly's in the middle of the day, shopping at Spag's Monday mornings, smoking at bingo Tuesday evenings, arriving early for the free Brown Bag concerts at Mechanics Hall.

They do things that many young people don't do -- vote and read, for instance. And because they vote and read they wield considerable power in this democratic society. Politicians are afraid of them. Politicians don't want to be figuratively gummed to death by a gaggle of rabid blue-hairs.

That's why the city is about to build an out-of-place, undersized, questionably necessary senior center for $4.3 million on Vernon Hill across from St. Vincent Hospital. And that's why not one single voice was raised against this boondoggle until it was almost too late. We've got geezerphobia.

So let us praise the one man who had the courage to speak out: 83-year-old Fairman Cowan wrote an op-ed piece in the Telegram & Gazette on August 25, in which he noted that the city is spending nothing on the Youth Center while planning to pour millions into an over-priced glorified bingo parlor a mile from downtown.

What little hair remains on Cowan's venerable head may be gray. His rimless glasses may be thicker than they once were. But his intelligence is ever keen, his aim true, and his moral vigor undiminished. Long a civic leader, the former attorney for Norton Co. and Bowditch & Dewey still does his part to keep the city livable: he's active in the Municipal Research Bureau and the Alliance for Education, he's on advisory boards at Dynamy, the Elm Park Center, and the Great Brook Valley Health Center.

In other words, Cowan is not the type of guy to drop by the proposed senior center for a haircut, a blood-pressure check, a hot lunch, or a hand of gin rummy.

"I wouldn't be seen dead at a place like that, nor would any of my friends," he says. "People I'm with have got too many things to do to use up our time with something like that. Why would I want to be with a lot of old people all the time, either?

"As an older person, I'm pro-youth, because the elderly are the most over-privileged people in the country," Cowan says. "Ever since the advent of Social Security in 1933, the incidence of poverty among the elderly has gone way down."

Cowan couldn't make the grand opening of the Youth Center's new Chandler Street facility, so he went down by himself one night this summer. And he liked what he saw.

"The place was just hopping with kids," Cowan says. "They were playing games and the boom box was going loud, and you got the feeling this is a great place. Then suddenly everyone had to leave."

The Youth Center has to close at 9 p.m. because it doesn't have enough money or volunteers to stay open.

"It seemed to me to put the kids out on the street in the summertime was kind of an invitation to some problems," Cowan says. "Then when I got thinking about the $4.3 million to build the senior center, there was a stark contrast there."

Cowan remembers the senior center that used to be in the basement of Worcester Center Galleria before it became Worcester Common Outlets.

"I used to go by there because Norton's office was down there," he says. "And they were all playing gin rummy and sitting around and talking. And it's very nice; but in terms of serving a real need, it's hard to see it."

Nobody's gone into great detail about why we need a senior center because nobody's had to. All the seniors had to do was show that they wanted one and the local politicians immediately agreed it was a grand and necessary idea. (After eight years, they still haven't gotten around to building it, but they do agree it's necessary.) One of the prime arguments in favor of the senior center was that just about every other community has one. Isn't it ironic that seniors, who spent the first half of their lives reminding us that "just because everybody else does it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do," would resort to that very argument when they were hard up for a place to schmooze?

But there are other, more valid, arguments for a senior center, and Elizabeth Mullaney, head of the city's Office of Elder Affairs, has plenty of them. The senior center, which is out to bid now, is to be built in the old nurses building opposite St. Vincent Hospital. Tenet Healthcare is providing the building free as part of its tax increment financing (TIF) deal with the city for what used to be called Medical City.

Mullaney says the center will provide one-stop shopping, where seniors can stop in at a clinic, take courses, do arts and crafts, get the socialization they need, perm up at the beauty parlor and maybe move on to counseling sessions and volunteer activities. Tenet has also agreed to provide a shuttle to the senior center from downtown.

The way things change in the medical world; it's not easy to hold people accountable for their predecessors' promises. Just last week, for example, the city solicitor ruled that it didn't really matter that St. Vincent hadn't lived up to its promise to provide a certain number of jobs in return for the TIF. Will the shuttle service eventually be kissed off too? Don't bet against it.

But that's not the big problem with the senior center. Even if you assume that the city needs this kind of one-stop center, and that its functions couldn't be handled better and much more cheaply in a variety of locations by a variety of providers, the bottom line is that the Vernon Hill building is too small to fulfill its mission and too far from downtown to do Worcester any good.

Last week on the Jordan Levy Show, Everett Shaw, the city's chief development officer, emphasized how important it is for a city to do the right project in the right location. If this is the right project, it is most definitely in the wrong location.

The size -- 20,000 to 22,000 square feet -- is less than one-third of the 70,000 square feet Mullaney says is optimum for a city with Worcester's large elderly population. And it's still far less than the 35,000 square feet senior-center advocates had counted on.

Worcester needs people downtown, and it needs fewer empty buildings on Main Street. Mullaney admits that both the Kresge building opposite City Hall and the Burwick building at Main and Madison are far better locations with much more space and lower renovation costs. But city officials, blinded by TIF fever, bounced the ball up Vernon Hill and it got stuck there. Mullaney and her gang of seniors are tired of waiting.

"Our view is, one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush," she says. "Is this the perfect site? No. Is it what we have? Yes. It's literally and figuratively an uphill battle, but let's make lemonade out of the lemons we have."

The budget challenges may be overwhelming. The city has to come up with $2.5 million at a time when it barely has enough money to do more important things. And senior-center advocates will have to raise $1 million privately, at a time when the Age Center of Worcester is launching a campaign to raise $2.5 million to expand its services.

Mullaney points out that Worcester's senior population is growing. True. Pretty soon Baby Boomers like me will need a place to go to get our Viagra and share acid flashbacks. But the place on Vernon Hill will be too small for us. No room for a mosh pit when Generation X ages. We'll have to build another senior center in 10 years. What will that cost the city?

Bingo. The city should heed the counsel of that wise senior citizen Fairman Cowan. Bail out on this plan and, if we do it, do it right.