Omaha World Herald wrote:
Tech auditorium effort gets big pledge
The effort to renovate the auditorium in the old Technical High School building has received a big boost.
The Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation of Lincoln has pledged $350,000 for the renovation of the school's auditorium, in the Omaha Public Schools' administration building at 3215 Cuming St. in Omaha.
The auditorium will be named after Ethel Abbott.
In addition to the foundation's pledge, organizers said, the auditorium renovation committee recently received large donations from the Whitmore Trust and the FVB Foundation.
To date, the committee has raised more than $100,000, and intends to raise an additional $250,000 from Tech High alumni, organizers said.
Michael Green, president of EverGreen Capital Management, is chairman of the project's capital campaign. Green said Wednesday that he is pleased by the progress: "We hope the hammers will be swinging pretty soon."
Tech High was open from 1923 until 1984. Upon the closing of Tech, the building, with the exception of the auditorium, was renovated for use as the OPS Teacher Administrative Center.
Once the work is complete, the auditorium will be available for public use by community organizations for performances, rehearsals and meetings.
I had my graduation there it was ugly as heck. I think thost windows were stoned up. When they had to move All City there lots of teachers wanted to rasie money to paint the place but it didn't happen.
Does anyone have a capacity for that place? from the picture it looks sizeable! Hopefully it will be given the same quality of attention the Suart/Rococo Theatre did in Lincoln.
It may be ugly now, but its a great room and has a ton of potential. When they renovated Central, that turned out excellent and so will this most likely. It'd be cool to see some of the area theatres maybe use it once in a while like the Shelterbelt.
