Category: K-8 Schools

Irvington Schools of the Past

Irvington currently has a high school, 2 middle schools and 7 schools covering Pre-K through grade 5. There are several schools that no longer exist or have been converted to a different school.

Clinton School
Clinton Avenue Elementary School was located on Clinton Ave. near the intersection with Springfield Ave. It had earlier been called Central School.
Clinton Avenue Elementary School closed in 1941. and was then used as the Community Building.
The Irvington Hotel was at the corner of Clinton and Springfield Ave. It existed from 1890-1924. The Clinton Ave school is to the right with a rather fancy center tower.
clinton springfield
The corner now – the school location is now the Irvington Senior Apartments. That big fancy home still stands but is hidden behind stores.
demolished
The Central/Clinton/Community building, which had been built in 1870, was closed in 1972 and demolished in 1974.
Coit St School
Coit Street School was located on Coit St. near Woolsey St. It opened in 1903 and had 4 rooms for 4 grades.
Listed on two postcards as “School No. 1” this building looks the same as Clinton Ave. School. I couldn’t find any additional information, so perhaps it is the same building, or they built two identical buildings.
school no. 1
School No. 1 – This wider view shows a side street that wouldn’t make this the Clinton Ave. building, so School No. 1 must have been somewhere else in town.
Irvington Tech
Popularly known as Irvington Tech, the school was at the corner of University Place and Myrtle Ave. next to Myrtle Ave. Junior High School. This is a page from the school’s “Technique” yearbook. Myrtle Ave. JHS is now University Middle School.
The Tech building is now University Elementary School.
Back view of the school looking down Columbia Ave.
Looking south on Myrtle Ave.

SOURCES INCLUDE

Annual Report of the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction of New Jersey, 1902

Madison Avenue School – Irvington, NJ

Madison 1960s
The school in the 1960s

buttonMadison Avenue School is at the corner of Orange Ave. and Madison Ave.  It was a K-6 school for many years. This was my elementary school and when I was in kindergarten in 1958-59, we were in the “new” building that was at the corner of Madison and Cummings St. that held the Kindergaten, first and second-grade classes. We had two classes per grade.

The original building was closed in 2013 and in need of many updates and repairs. It was determined that the cost of retrofitting the buildings to the current state requirements was cost-prohibitive. So, students from that area were sent to  Mt. Vernon Ave. School as a “swing” school during demolition and construction.

The Madison Avenue School buildings (original building and K-2 addition) were demolished in 2016. The new building was opened in September 2019 and is now a pre-K through grade 5 school.

If you are a Madison Avenue School graduate from any year, consider joining our Facebook group and join in the conversation and see many more photos of the school, classes and the neighborhood.

1947
In 1947, Joan Gritz is checking out here new school for kindergarten. This was the entrance on Orange Ave. where many of us enter to spend time on the playground before school started.
The Halloween parade

classroom
In a classroom, back in the day
classroom
Classic classroom – remember those desks, the handwriting border, those clocks that we stared at hoping for 3 PM…
cake walk
The cakewalk at the annual fall carnival where you walked around a painted circle on the playground to music and when the music stopped a number determined who won one of the home-baked cakes.
carnival
Parents ran all the concessions and games at the carnival. Here a father is cooking burgers and hot dogs.
madison at mt vernon
Madison at Mt. Vernon
The newer building at Cummings when the school was closed before its demolition.
aerial view
The school in its final years of using the original buildings. (Aerial view via Google Maps 2015)

Demolition begins 2016

Demolition September 2017

Plan for the new building
Construction April 2018
new construction from the Cummings St. corner

The new building – September 2019.

The new Madison
new
The new building as seen from a car driving down Madison and crossing Orange Avenue.
new
The playground side as seen from Madison Ave.
playground
Quite different from the old playground!

playground

Elementary Schools in Irvington, New Jersey

old desk

In the month to come, I hope to post a page for each of the elementary schools in town with photos old and new that I have archived from various sources online.

In the future, I also plan to post related materials such as photos from the 6th grade camp experience, class photos, etc.

First up this week is my elementary school, Madison Avenue School.

  1. Augusta Preschool Academy
  2. Berkeley Terrace School K–5
  3. Chancellor Avenue School PreK–5
  4. Florence Avenue School K–5
  5. Grove Street School PreK–5
  6. Madison Avenue School K–5
  7. Thurgood G. Marshall School PreK–5
  8. Mount Vernon Avenue School PreK–5
  9. University Elementary Schoo K–5
  10. Union Avenue Middle School 6–8
  11. University Middle School 6–8