by Matt Nicolay ’14
Gibbons Hall, located on West 32nd Street directly across from the fire station parking lot, opens to students this fall.
Mr. Hendler of the Plant Services department said that the new building will have multiple users.
“It’s more than a facility just for wrestlers. About half the building is for wrestlers,” Hendler said. “There’s a Labre kitchen in there, so the Labre program will work out of that building.”
The new, larger first-floor Labre kitchen is outfitted with appliances and additional floor space.
This was badly needed, Hendler said, as the school was using its own kitchen for Labre and was told that it could not continue to use that kitchen for faith-based charity.
Hendler said that the building’s second floor was built with flexibility in mind.
“Half the building has a second floor. Upstairs we have a multipurpose classroom that can be used by any department that needs a more flexible space or an extra classroom for whatever, such as drivers’ ed, or the Arrupe program or things like that,” Hendler said. “There’s also a fitness center on the second floor that’s for all the employees of the school. [It’s] like a health club type of facility.”
The funding for the extensive renovations came from a large donation by alumnus Mr. Eugene Gibbons ’70. While some donors specify exactly what they want their money to be used for, Mr. Gibbons asked Saint Ignatius how he could best shape his donation to meet the school’s needs. What resulted is the multi-purposed Gibbons Hall.
Hendler said that if a student is not involved in wrestling or Labre and is never assigned to the multipurpose classroom, it is likely that he will never enter Gibbons Hall as the building will be a somewhat restricted area. Still, it should serve a large proportion of the student body for years to come.
