Issue date: 6/11/03 Section: Front Page

A once well-known social gathering place has been demolished due to unsafe conditions.

Only the concession stand and the bleachers remain from The Grove, located west of Simpson Drill Field and south of Albritton Bell Tower, once home to Thursday night yell practices and Ring Dance.

The stage, restrooms and metal building were all torn down, said Jim Reynolds, Memorial Student Center director.

He said he had planned on improving The Grove with upgrades and renovations, but that they never evolved. The existing band shell had to be torn down, he said.

Les G. Swick, the Physical Plant's associate director for facilities, said the stage and restrooms were in such poor condition that it was a good decision to take them down.

"There were tremendous maintenance problems with those restrooms," Swick said. "They failed to satisfy current code requirements, and the stage was becoming equally dangerous."

According to The Grove Web site, the bathrooms and stage failed to comply with the American's with Disabilities Act.

Portable buildings at The Grove currently house the Department of Student Life's Conflict Resolution Services, and Adult, Graduate and Off-Campus Student Services. The Department of Residence Life is also in a portable building. The departments are currently in trailers, waiting until the planned residence life and student services building, located by Haas Hall, is completed.

Former students who spent numerous nights at The Grove recall that movies shown at The Grove were once a major event.

Betty Cook of Hurst, Texas, said her father was an agricultural economics professor from 1957, when Cook was in fourth grade, until the late 1970s, so she was always on the A&M campus.

"It was packed the night they showed the movie about the Aggies having to do with going off to World War II," Cook said, referring to the 1943 movie, "We've Never Been Licked."

The Grove has also been the site for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, concerts, socials and dances.

Cook said that The Grove was a common place to hang out in College Station, especially during the summer months.

Reynolds said that a committee would eventually be formed to determine the final fate of the 61-year-old area, but not for at least two years.

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