SAN ANTONIO — For 100 years now, the Woolworth building withstood the test of time.
“The building is a fine architecture specimen,” Patty Zaiontz, a spokesperson for the San Antonio Conservation Society, said.
The building sits in downtown San Antonio, right across from the Alamo, and it’s one of the places San Antonio peacefully integrated for the first time -- one of the first cities in the South to do so.
“It was done unusually peacefully in San Antonio,” Aaronetta Pierce with the Coalition For the Woolworth said.
61 years later, it’s a piece of history people are still fighting to keep alive. Due to the Alamo Plaza museum plan that has been in the works for years, the Woolworth Building has been in danger of being demolished. Pierce says there are ways around that.
“There have been reconsiderations in ways that it can do, and still preserve the building,” Pierce said.
She hopes the recent supports of Mayor Ron Nirenberg and other prominent city members to keep the building intact helps their case.
“It is our hope that with that kind of authority behind us the Woolworth and Crockett buildings will be saved and that we’ll be able to preserve the building where history was made during the Civil Rights movement,” Pierce said.
So far, no official decision has been made on what will happen with the historic building filled with black history, but Pierce thinks a decision could be made soon, and she thinks it could be one in her favor.
“It would mean we would have the respect of our fellow citizens, that our history matters, that it’s important enough o be told in one of the most visible plazas in San Antonio. That would do a good deal in building alliances with our fellow citizens,” Pierce said.