Backgrounder, Sports

160 Years of Change: A brief history of Athens YMCA buildings

The YMCA in Athens was established in 1857, making it the third oldest in the nation.

In 160 years the organization has gone through a number of buildings.

Athens Banner-Herald on Twitter: “.@AthensYMCA awarded scholarship for swimming and water safety https://t.co/srXucNYgUk pic.twitter.com/OdVSpAOLEI / Twitter”

@AthensYMCA awarded scholarship for swimming and water safety https://t.co/srXucNYgUk pic.twitter.com/OdVSpAOLEI

According to its website, for over 30 years after its establishment, the Athens’ YMCA didn’t have its own building. Because membership hadn’t quite picked up yet and the “War Between the States” had interrupted attendance till the 80s, the Athens’ YMCA was held in First Presbyterian Church on East Hancock Avenue.

The first building, which according to the Athens Banner-Herald was eventually converted into the Georgia Theatre, was built in 1889 and located on the corner of Clayton and Lumpkin streets. The campaign to move into this building didn’t start until a year after hiring the first paid employee, CEO Walter T. Forbes.

This facility had a 168 square-foot pool called the “Iron Tank,” which was Northeast Georgia’s first indoor pool. To increase income, the YMCA rented out the first floor of this building to merchants.

In 1919 the YMCA raised over $100,000 in order to build their second facility on the corner of Broad and Lumpkin streets, facing the university campus. The first basketball teams of Clarke Central High School and the University of Georgia practiced in this gym, with Forbes coaching the university teams for years.

This building was sold and demolished in the early 70s, the rear is now a parking lot for Holiday Inn WHICH HOLIDAY INN? THERE ARE TWO ON BROAD STREET – BE SPECIFIC , to make way for a newer more family and community focused building.

At the cost of over $800,000, the third and current YMCA facility of 90,000 square-feet was opened in 1967 on Hawthorne Avenue.

Although the YMCA works to a have a suitable location for its participants to meet at, directors maintain that the YMCA isn’t a building, but an association of people CITE THE SOURCE – ACCORDING TO A WHAT DATE ARTICLE IN the Washington Post.

“Bricks and mortar help define where the YMCA is, but they do not define what the YMCA is,” WROTE WHO WHEN the El Paso Times. “Beyond the four walls of the facilities there is a community that is growing.”