John Zon may not have lived long enough to see Greenfield’s replacement for the Weldon House senior center, a project he long advocated, but his abiding interest in serving seniors and his community will find fulfillment in that new facility, which fittingly bears his name
The John Zon Community Center, the recently completed 9,800-square-foot building on Pleasant Street, will serve primarily as a senior center, replacing the 40-year-old center built on the ground floor of the Weldon House senior apartment building on High Street.
While some have complained the new building is about 2,000 square feet smaller than originally envisioned, it’s what the town could afford and is still larger than the Weldon space, which had about 7,000 square feet of usable space. Its meeting rooms will be available for community uses when the senior center programs aren’t operating.
“I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to the community in the 69 years I’ve been alive,” Precinct 1 City Councilor Verne Sund said during the open house for city officials.
The new community/senior center at 35 Pleasant St. is located on the site of the former Davis Street School, which most recently housed the Greenfield school superintendent’s administrative offices.
The building features community office space and four program rooms that will allow for a number of activities, including classes, exercise, games, internet-enabled computer access and movies.
The building has several energy-efficient features, such as LED lighting, large open windows and an energy recovery system that can recycle heating and air conditioning.
Hope Macary, director for the Greenfield Council on Aging, believes that the new center will attract more seniors to city-sponsored programs, as the baby boomer generation continues to move into retirement.
Zon has been called a tireless advocate for seniors, veterans and young people in Greenfield, and rightly so. Zon, who died in 2012 at the age of 89, epitomized service and commitment to the community broadly, and seniors in particular in his later years. His name on the center will be a symbol to all that the new building is truly a community center where seniors are most welcome.
Zon was a 1941 graduate of Greenfield High School and a veteran of the Army, serving from 1943 to 1946. A machinist and production supervisor, he was employed by Greenfield Tap and Die in its heyday, until he retired.
In retirement, he was chairman of the board for the Council on Aging for many years and sat on the Franklin County Technical School Committee. He was a Little League coach for 10 years and an avid Red Sox fan.
While some seniors originally complained that the new center is multi-use and not dedicated to them alone, the move was a political necessity to gain City Council support for the $4.2 million project. But we haven’t heard that complaint in some time, and we suspect that even Zon himself, long a community advocate before he became a senior and senior advocate himself, would be pleased with this new facility.