What even is a teen center ?
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It's kind of like a library but not that many books, more condoms and snacks, often a projector and screen for movie Nights, and access to Community Resources like food banks and clothing places and counseling for gay people and stuff
"Condoms and snacks"? I think you're thinking of the teen pregnancy center.
That's actually my library.
Yeah, communist shit. /s
Sounds like family planning ? At least ours is kinda like that ! (I’m French)
Ours had a big TV for movie night, a snack bar, a Nintendo room, and an arcade in the basement. It was built in the mid nineties, and is still there, though I haven't been inside since then. It's probably all updated.
Same. Mine also had punk concerts occasionally.
In the 90s, original teen center in my neighborhood was the YMCA or rec center. The adults complained and restricted a lot of the access to "teens with parents". Malls were kinda popular. But so was the nearest game store or comic store.
In the 2000s-2010s, it was coffee shops. But you had to pay to be inside.
The new "teen center" in my neighborhood was the library. Quality place.
My small town (<3000) had one in the 90s, we had a dance floor with music Friday and Saturday nights, a projector for movies and a concession stand, and a mini golf course downstairs. In my later teens I helped convert an unused part of the second story into a haunted house/maze for Halloween.
The building was originally a warehouse built back when the town had industry around the turn of the 20th century. It was brick built so still in great shape even today and it’s been abandoned again for 20 years now
It sounded great and you guys put a lot of work into that, why has it been abandoned for 20 years?
The town has just continued to decline, nearly everyone is either desperately poor, broken by their jobs so they can’t do anything or they’ll lose disability, on hardcore drugs, or so old/senile they can’t contribute to the community.
Nearest decent job and grocery stores being 45+ minutes didn’t help things. A few generations and it’ll be completely gone. I, like most capable children of these type of towns, fled to the city as soon as I was capable in search of a better life. Otherwise I’d break my back in manual labor and develop opioid addiction, or have my job replaced by automation and develop opioid addiction. Tis the fate of America’s rural Midwest
Back in the late 1800s-early 1900s the town counted over 60,000, by the early 90s around 3k was being generous with city borders and census counts. I honestly think they just stopped updating the sign to stave off depression and save money
My public library has one and has a bunch of teen books, manga, video games, board games, they just got some arcade machines, and they got some 3d printers. They got events going on from time to time for the kids as well.
Libraries is literally the Atlas image holding up the last vestiges of community.
There's a teen center 2 minutes from my house. Is it not normal to have a teen center?
They don't really exist anymore. 3rd places have more or less been killed off.
You must now own a car and pay money to exist somewhere, at all times.
And very soon it will be a felony to be homeless!
TV makes it seem normal, but I've never seen one IRL. But then, I've also never seen a school that is entirely inside a single building or has multiple floors, either. And I'm sure those exist somewhere.
I live in Germany and not once in my life have I seen a school that doesn't have multiple floors.
Funny, it feels like half of schools in Denmark are in multi-floor buildings, especially city schools.
I went to a school that is one multi story building. It's not a big school though which may be why. Highly populated area probably don't see things like that anymore .
The closest thing I've ever seen to a teen center was a sports facility that had a room for kids and teens to hang out, but that was closer to a babysitting service. Paired with the facts that you had to pay monthly membership dues ($25 to $100/mo these days, apparently) and the whole facility was meant for something else entirely, it's not something I would first describe as a teen center. Not any more than I'd call a high school a chemical R&D facility just because of its chemistry classroom.
Outside of that one room, I'm not aware of anything else nearby me that would be even remotely similar.
"After that, let's met up at the malt shop, listen to some doo-wop songs on the jukebox, and go see a movie at the drive-in."
We should bring all of that back. Well, maybe not the doo-wop.
why not the doo wop? i love doo wop. im the wanderer i roam around around around
Dude, I fucking hate people. Drive-ins ftw, I don't need to hear about how Rebecca on the 7th floor is such a bitch for sucking Andrew in the break room when she knew that Elix (spelled with a silent k) wanted him first, and the group of four are all on Instagram and Facebook starting drama, on their phones, in light mode, with no end in sight as the movie is about to start.
When me and my best friend still went to the movies, we'd always have this kind of shit happen, and we had a routine where one of us would loudly start talking about how we didn't think dinner was settling right and we might shit ourselves, or retelling how a couple rows down (where the annoying people are at) is about where my ex blew me and the mess was still there last time we checked, or we'd just start letting out some (not so) silent-but-deadly farts. Whatever it took to make sure the movie was enjoyable, we'd go pretty far with things, but it worked 100% of the time, the group would always move away.
Not having to do that, having the a/c exactly as we want it, the volume at the level we want it, would be so much better. Really, less interaction with people in general would be a wonderful thing...
And yet when I give the same suggestion to my friends they all call me a perv
Is it because you're in your 40s?
No no, don't you remember? The snooty rich jock's father shut down the teen center after the outcast new kid failed to beat him in a 1-on-1 street hockey game.
There's still a teen center where I live and kids do in fact hang out there.
went to teen center in the 80's. Its not that old. I bet they are more prevalent in cities.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Teen Centers are a thing since always. My high school had one until someone burned it down in 2015.
Keep going on about how these evil grownups just don't understand you though, commenters. CRAWLING IN MY SKIIIIN
They CAN be, depending on the area. My local neighborhood doesn't have one, and there isn't anything like that within the area of the city I'm in. "Third places" where you can just hang out with no expectations on you to purchase things or otherwise interact with that place's services are rapidly disappearing in the US.
I graduated in 2013 and we had a teen center, it's still a thing. I assume as long as theirs teens there will be adults wanting to get them off the streets
To be fair, most high schook text books are clones of previous edition, they just update pieces to be relevant with the current era.
When I was in middle school around 1990, my family lived in military base housing, and there was a "teen center". It had a TV, stereo system, some arcade games¹, and a snack bar. It hosted dances on weekends; with one night designated for the middle-school crowd and one for the high-school crowd.
¹ "Red wizard shot the food!"
That sounds real nifty. I do so enjoy a good sock hop. I just hope they don't play any of that devilish rock music.
Let's go have some soda pop at The Malt Shop!
Were where teen centers in the 50s and were they called that? I feel like that's a 70s and later thing.
Is this suggesting alternatives to doing drugs?
Drinking alcohol. After saying "'just say no' may not be enough" or something like that.
All of the suggestions are things kids could just bring alcohol to anyway lol
Have you heard? They got one of those “computer” things there now. I don't think they are going to catch on, so we should check it out as long as it's there.