City Cruising

By: Vince Fanghella

The beginning of the Spring 2016 semester at San Diego City College was a special one for me and my fellow students.  Mainly, it was the first time the Radio, Television and Film (RTVF) Department had been back  home at the “C” building in about two years.  Previously the department was located in the antiquated “T” building and other spots around campus while the entire C building was renovated with tax payer funding from Propositions S and N.

     While many aspects of this renovation are still being completed, it was an exciting time for us.  There were all new facilities including edit bays, equipment check out, a newsroom with plasma screens, a brand new state of the art television studio and a set of sparkling clean renovated bathrooms.

    Very quickly, the shine started to fade and the world came and crashed in on us.  RTVF students are protective of this facility but we couldn’t seem to stop the tens of thousand of dollars in theft and what was beginning to be a real vandalism and drinking problem.  How does a building have a drinking problem you ask?  Well, one by one, people were finding empty beers and empty bottles of hard liquor scattered around the stalls of the bathrooms.  We’d find these bottles and cans and talk amongst ourselves and wonder, “who wants to party in a public bathroom?”  

   The chatter grew until some people who had been at City for a while mentioned that the old C building bathroom used to be on Craigslist as a “party” place and that people had gotten arrested some years back for having sex in the bathrooms.  I wanted to see if that digital footprint was still around from all those years back, but I came to find the footprints are still fresh and are being made daily.

Linked below is a news package I did on this that was part of  City College Newscene, a weekly, live, half hour TV news show.

 

I would also like to add this link (below) to a current (May 2016) story from the City Times about this bathroom issue at City.  It was written by Collette Carroll, a very talented investigator and reporter, who I have had the pleasure of working with this semester.  The article is excellent and goes into much more depth than I ever could in a TV news package.  Also, an interesting look into the difference in the mediums of television and print news and how they both can work together.  A great read and reporter.

Websites promote City College restrooms for sexual encounters