50.0°,
Fair Seaford Avenue history saved
District donates artifacts from closed school to Historical Society
The Seaford Avenue School may be slated for demolition in the near future, but its memory will live on. The school district recently donated several artifacts from the building to the Seaford Historical Society, to be housed in its museum on Waverly Avenue.
The school served Seaford students from 1939 to 1981. It was then rented our for nearly two decades, first to Five Towns College and later to BOCES. Since the last tenant left, the school has sat empty, and it is slated to be torn down and replaced by senior citizen housing.
One of the artifacts that has been turned over to the Historical Society is the dedication plaque from when the school first opened. It hung in the lobby and listed the Board of Education members at the time, as well as District Superintendent Wellington C. Mepham, the architects, attorney and contractors.
The school was part of the Works Progress Administration construction program of the Great Depression, and a second plaque states that, and lists President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Administrator of Public Works Harold L. Ickes.
“You’re talking about projects to make work to get us out of the Depression,” said Charley Wroblewski, president of the Historical Society. “It’s significant. In the time that America and the Seaford School District were expanding, this school was a big undertaking.”
Schools Superintendent Brian Conboy, who attended the school as a child, said the two-piece plaque has historical significance and was worth saving.
Two items that hung in the school from the American bicentennial, a mural of an eagle on the Liberty Bell and a 1976 American flag, were also turned over to the Historical Society.
Conboy also noted a heavy, brass plaque dedicated to Clarence P. Young, a longtime teacher at the school who died during spring break in 1971. Young was beloved, said Conboy, whose sister was a member of that class.
“I remember that because I was a fourth-grader at the time,” he said. “That was a really sad and devastating event for those kids.”
