Site work on LA City College's new student union started back at the beginning of the year and rebar's now going in, but an 85 year old former LACC student and athlete is trying to get the plans changed at the eleventh hour. Does anything ever go smoothly at the former site of Majestic Golf Land? The LA Times profiles Duke Russell, who briefly played baseball at LACC in the 1940s before transferring and eventually playing in the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system. He says sports are an important gateway to education and has spent years fighting for programs and facilities at community colleges and LACC in particular. The school was apparently once "a sports powerhouse," but now it doesn't even have an intercollegiate program, while its new athletic building, next to the old Majestic site, has been sitting around unopened because of issues with the construction (the school is now saying it'll open by the end of 2011). The school's Snyder Field was razed in 2003. Now Russell is petitioning to have the student union (which is supposed to have a bookstore, study rooms, and food courts), along with a planned maintenance facility and tennis courts, scrapped so they can be replaced with a new field. According to the LAT, the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council doesn't hate the idea.
· His dream is a new field at L.A. City College [LAT]
· Majestic Golf Land Demolished, What's LACC Got Planned? [Curbed LA]
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