Back to Normal

Workers on Friday hauled away the last of the portable classrooms on the east side of the Cal State Northridge campus, signaling another step in recovery for the school that caught the brunt of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Before being dismantled this week, the so-called Zelzah Court trailer village had housed the College of Humanities.

Now humanities will be taught in the newly renovated kinesiology and Jerome Richfield buildings on the school’s west side.

That’s good news for CSUN students such as 25-year-old sociology major Michelle Gold. She agrees with the late sociologist Emile Durkheim, that environment affects performance.

“I hated those trailers,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I was really in school. I think it affected my grades. They’ve gotten better since we moved back into real buildings.”

CSUN leased more than 400 trailers following the 1994 quake. Of the 107 structures damaged, 76 buildings are still undergoing repairs, and about half of the trailers remain.

School officials estimate they are midway in repairing the estimated $350 million in total quake damage.

All repairs are scheduled to be completed by 2000.

For the past three years, most CSUN students have had classes in trailers, which were brought in to quickly reopen the university after the quake.

“It was like building a small city,” said campus spokesman Bruce Erickson.

“We had to pave roads and sidewalks, [build] bathrooms, sewer lines, electrical lines, telephone lines--all in two weeks.”

Zelzah Court was the site of CSUN’s rebirth.

Campus President Blenda J. Wilson and her staff set up their administrative headquarters in a canvas field tent, reopening the school a month after the earthquake.

Maureen Shideh, CSUN’s relocation coordinator, said more trailers will be removed this winter as repairs continue. The College of Engineering and Computer Science and the health science department are scheduled to move into the first floor of the engineering building in January.

Several important campus structures have been demolished rather than fixed: the fine arts building, two wings of the Delmar T. Oviatt Library and the south library building. One of the school’s multistory parking garages was also leveled.

The University Tower Apartments, at the corner of Lassen Street and Zelzah Avenue, is the final building scheduled for demolition in the spring.

Not everyone was bothered by the portable classrooms.

“My hat’s off to the administration, which was able to get the university back online so fast,” said senior Marshall Evans, 24. “Once you get in the classroom, four walls are four walls. The ideas are the same, the physical environment doesn’t matter.”

CSUN officials earlier this week announced the school will receive $63 million in additional federal and state disaster aid under a fast-track program designed to more quickly allocate money for earthquake repairs.