East School (demolished) Improvements – West Hartford CT

City:
West Hartford, CT

Site Type:
Schools, Education and Health

New Deal Agencies:
Civil Works Administration (CWA), Work Relief Programs, Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

Site Survival:
No Longer Extant

Description

In 1933 the federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) furnished the labor for the installation of four light bulbs per classroom in what was then known as the East School.

The next year the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) undertook repair work in the basement of the school; repaired concrete floors; and plastered walls. Furthermore F.E.R.A. labor re-painted the school’s exterior, conducted roof repairs, repointed bricks, and continued the undertaking of lighting improvements.

The school was closed and demolished. West Hartford Library explains that Whiting Lane Elementary School was constructed to replace the East School in 1954. However, it was not built on the same site as the old building; as Linda Rodger explains, “it was located on the [southwest] corner of Farmington Avenue and Whiting Lane. … It was INDEED replaced by the Whiting Lane School which was down the street away.”

From the memoir of Linda Rodger:

The new house was not in the Morley School district and we kids should have been placed in East School. However, my mother thought the old East School building was a fire trap and she didn’t want her kids there. The house was about half way between the two schools and Mom got permission to keep her kids at Morley.

By this time it was 1947 and young men were coming home from World War II and starting new families. Business was booming for the housing industry, and the West Hartford school system was overloaded. In a large redistricting plan, kids from Morley School were sent to other elementary schools, and the Macintosh kids were transferred to East School.

Source notes

Report of Town Officials, Town of West Hartford. Fiscal Period March 1, 1933 to February 28, 1934.

https://www.westhartfordlibrary.org/research_tools/local_history/west_hartford/whps (accessed Jun. 21, 2016)

Historic map showing school: https://www.westhartfordlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/plate22.jpg (accessed Sept. 24, 2022)

Linda Rodger

Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on June 21, 2016.
Additional contributions by Linda Rodger, Sept. 2022.

Location Info


Whiting Lane and Farmington Ave.
West Hartford, CT

Coordinates: 41.764728, -72.724702

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