Jean Doran MatuaLast fall, on Sept. 14, 2001, a fire destroyed the Johnson-Kelly American Legion building in Kingston. On that cold, rainy afternoon, people watched as the center of their community literally went up in smoke.
The old building, originally built in 1960 to be a community center, was sold at auction on Sunday, March 17. At their annual meeting on March 12, Kingston Township voters approved paying a portion of the cost to rebuild. The City of Kingston has donated land near the ballpark for the new building. These were the final pieces needed before plans could continue for rebuilding the Legion.
As soon as ground can be broken – perhaps in about six weeks – the foundation will be laid and construction will begin. The new community center will be slightly larger than the old one, nearly 3,500 square feet, plus an entry way. The new building will not be a pole building; it will have four-foot frost footings and a brick facade three feet up. “We want to have it done before election time,” said Post Commander John Smith. “We’re shooting for Labor Day.”
The cost will be about $176,000, which Smith expects to be paid by the time the building is completed. The Legion will pay the bulk of the cost (from insurance money and fundraising), but the City and Township will legally own the building. “They can get better insurance rates,” explained Smith, “and by having a municipality own the building, it frees up the Legion from taxes.” The City has already donated the land for the new community center. Now that plans are being finalized, help is starting to come in for chairs and tables and other furnishings not in-cluded in the $176,000 budget.
The building is jointly planned by the Legion and the City and Township of Kingston. Their goal is to build a community center that will be the best they can build with the resources they have now. “We could have gotten a loan, if we wanted to do it ourselves. But we’re all getting up there in age; I’m one of the youngest ones. We aren’t going to be able to keep up this forever. … The city needs a place to vote that’s up-to-date, with handicap access and bathrooms, and that’s up to code, so people who are disabled can get in and exercise their rite to vote without a hassle. That’s our major concern. Many of our Legion people are getting to the point where they need it. Everybody in the city can have access to it, get into it and do their civic duties.”
Before the fire, the Legion relied on three sources of revenue: rental of the Legion Hall, their annual fish fry and annual turkey feed. The Lions helped with maintenance of the building, and will likely continue to do so. But with the new building, costs will be shared between the Legion, City and Township. As before, the new Kingston Community Center will not serve liquor, and they won’t have pull tabs or bingo. It will be a community center fit for any community event.
Smith, who is also mayor of the City of Kingston, is proud of the plans for the new building. “We’re doing a darn good job of it,” he said. “We’ve put thousands of man-hours into it, between the whole group of us. We’ve put a lot of time, and we’ve tried to put a lot of thought. We’ll have something that looks decent for the community, that’s paid for, and that will last for the next generation at least, perhaps 50-75 years or more.”