BY LAURA GOLDBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Some Cincinnati teens will soon get places they can call their own: At recreation centers in the East End, West End and Mount Auburn, existing areas are being transformed into teen lounges.
The lounges, which are slated for all 29 city recreation centers, are part of the Cincinnati Recreation Commission's (CRC) special emphasis on teens along with teen dances, teen councils and other activities.
Casey Irvin, 14, is on the teen council at Krueck Community Center in Clifton Heights. He's looking forward to a lounge.
"We need one so just us teens can go in there," the Fairview Heights teen said. "So just teens can hang out."
CRC's attention to teens is a response to a message officials got in 1995 that there wasn't enough offered for them.
CRC, which runs the city's recreation department, heard that complaint as it worked with residents to fashion a master plan for the future.
The plan, adopted in June 1996, made teens the top focus.
By giving teens something to do, officials hope they can keep them away from drugs and other trouble. They also hope adults running programs act as positive role models and that teens get to know people outside of their neighborhoods through some of the activities. "We've come a long way in two years," said Mike Thomas, youth and family services director. "We've got a long way to go."
Construction on the three lounges, at a cost of about $125,000, is to start next month and should take about 60 days. Equipment will include computers, televisions and sound systems. In the future, four to five a year are to be built.
Makeshift teen areas have already been created in about 10 centers. In all but one of those, teens must share space with others. The makeshift lounges will be replaced with permanent ones.
Wayne Bain, acting recreation director, said teens requested their own areas.
"As we design these, we talk to the teens themselves," said Mr. Bain. "This is their room, so we want them to be the ones that design it."
The centers already are beefing up programs for teens. There have been dances and citywide socials, which have attracted as many as 100 teens to each. The young people eat pizza, meet new people, discuss problems and sometimes do community service projects. At one social, teens made journals for kids at Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Centers, sometimes once or twice a month, take teens on field trips ranging from malls and movies to visits to nursing home residents. From January to March, the Lincoln Community Center in the West End ran a basketball league for teen girls.
Small groups of teens have gone river rafting, while others have camped and still others took scuba lessons. Teens often suggest activities and sometimes do fund-raising to help defray costs. "You have to ask them and get their input as to what they want to do or they won't be here for the activities," said Tom Reiring, a director at the Dunham Recreation Complex in West Price Hill. Teen outings at Dunham have ranged from bowling to skiing.
Dunham's teen council, formed in September 1996, gathers Wednesday evenings. Sometimes the teens plan activities, other times they just "lounge about" in a room with old chairs and sofas. Movie posters decorate the walls.
Wednesday, more than 25 showed up. They turned up the boom box very loud, chatted, watched TV, played computer games, doodled on a chalk board and drank soda. One opened a school book.
"We get to hang out and make friends and sit around and not have to do anything, like a big party every week," said Liz Smallwood, 14, of Price Hill. "It's like our personal place that we've got." Eric Adams, 16, of Price Hill, and Morgan Lintz, 12, of Westwood have gone to Dunham for about a month.
"They're really nice around here. They don't care who you are, where you come from," Morgan said. "It's some place to go instead of getting into trouble."
Eric said he likes the teen room. "It shows the teens are important, not just that the teens are troublemakers."
Dan Gilday, CRC president, said teens can be influenced by any number of negatives: drugs, gangs, peer pressure.
"We feel an obligation to offer them some alternative to the negative elements," Mr. Gilday said.
Officials say they must be flexible so they can keep up with teens' ever-changing interests.
"This group is so hard to reach," said Jess Parrett, CRC's community planning and information director. "They're fickle. One minute they love a program and the next minute it's passe."
In the long term, CRC hopes to build three regional complexes that would be home to citywide athletic leagues, now run out of community centers. The centers would then be more available for neighborhood use and for teens.
