116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Greene Square buildings
Cedar Rapids pagoda followed by senior center, meals program
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
When Cedar Rapids began planning for its annual carnival in 1907, city officials decided a new pagoda was appropriate for the city’s downtown park, then called Washington Square. It would be one of the first things visitors saw when arriving by train at the adjacent Union Station.
The circular pagoda, with stone columns and a cone-shaped roof, covered the center of a sidewalk that crossed the park.
“At the time of the semicentennial celebration in 1906, the city council met in the square and passed a resolution naming the park, then known as Washington Square, officially ‘Greene’s Square,’ ” local historian Ralph Clements reported. (For more on the park, see the first Time Machine column, from 2013.)
Pavilion’s uses
The pavilion was turned into a candy house for Santa in December 1913. Assisted by the city council, city officials and others, Santa distributed candy to thousands of children.
In 1919, Parks Commissioner H.J. Whitfield ordered a new coat of paint for the pavilion.
By 1927, Cedar Rapids had 22 parks. Greene Square, at about two acres, was one of the smallest.
In August 1928, the pavilion was the center of a market display of vegetables and flowers grown by the children who tended both the playground and their home gardens. There were 354 exhibits.
New seats were placed in the pavilion in May 1935.
Crowds strolled through the square in July 1962 for Summer Festival art presentations by the city’s many cultural groups.
Senior center
Plans began in 1963 to build a senior center in Greene Square. Those plans solidified when the city’s building and trades unions pledged to donate their labor.
“The fan-shaped structure is to be built in the southwest corner of the square. Parks Commissioner Don Gardner said cost of the 4,000-square-foot building would be as high as $90,000 without the cooperation of the unions,” The Gazette reported.
Gardner said Greene Square was chosen for the center because it was convenient to mass transportation, and many retired people lived within walking distance.
Leo C. Peiffer & Associates was the architect and donated its supervision during construction.
“The building will have a warm color face brick inside and outside with a pre-cast concrete roof,” The Gazette reported. “It will contain a large meeting room with sliding curtains to form smaller games and meeting rooms. Toilet and kitchen facilities will be available. There will be storage areas for tables and chairs and other equipment and a landscaped exterior patio for summer activities.”
With the Senior Center under construction, attention turned to the landmark pavilion in the middle of the square. It was demolished in March 1964.
“City officials said the concrete and stone pavilion was removed to enhance the overall beauty of the park and the new Senior Citizens Center, which is nearing completion. The sidewalk which ran beneath the circular canopy will be removed and replaced with a new walkway,” according to The Gazette.
The Senior Center was open for business in September 1964.
Senior center opens, closes
The next month the center hosted Lee Udall, wife of Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall, and Suzanne Roosevelt, whose husband Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was the Undersecretary of Commerce. After appearing at a news conference and a Democratic rally, the women toured the new Senior Citizens Center in Greene Square.
The new building was officially named in December 1964: the Senior Recreation Center.
Seventeen years later, the center was seeing fewer people, no doubt because the Witwer Senior Center, 305 Second Ave. SE, had opened in February 1981 two blocks away. The Witwer served all of Linn County, while Greene Square was limited to Cedar Rapids residents.
The public was given a month to express their opinion on closing the center in the park. In October 1981, Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission Director John Foens announced the commission would recommend closing the Greene Square rec center, 400 Fourth Ave. SE.
Other uses, razing
The city building became home to the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission in 1982.
Advantages included its accessibility and the additional space it provided the commission. One big disadvantage was the improperly installed furnaces. When one furnace ran, there was no problem, but if both were activated, there was no cold air return and the building filled with carbon monoxide. It took a couple of weeks to fix the problem.
When the commission moved out two years later, Parks Commissioner Elmer Delaney eyed the space for Parks Department employees.
In 1987, the building became the location for Green Square Meals (the nonprofit dropped the “e”), a soup kitchen originally operated by the St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church. The group grew to involve 11 other churches and organizations, and it incorporated as Green Square Meals, renting the Greene Square site for $1 a year.
By March 2007, the city asked Green Square Meals to move so the building could be razed. In March 2008, the organization found a new space at 605 Second Ave. SE.
The park building was still standing and took on a little water during the flood of 2008, before being razed Dec. 31, 2010, by D.W. Zinser Co. of Walford.
Comments: D.fannonlangton@gmail.com
Daily Newsletters