Of course, our school has evolved over the years. Especially with all of the building updates that are happening now and even the ones that happened a while ago. But I was most curious and wanted to dig a little bit deeper about the now shuttered up school most kids attended here in Putnam County before BHS, Henry H. Wells Middle School, C.V. Starr, and JFK. This school was named Garden Street Elementary School, located in Brewster Village. I searched high and low on YouTube and the internet to find information about the interesting and scary stories that have happened at the school.
Garden Street was built in the 1800s and was originally a much smaller school, almost like a schoolhouse. However, most people don’t know, but the school actually burned down back in the early 1920’s and was eventually rebuilt later on in 1925. In 1939, there were more additions to the school to allow more kids in, especially since the population started to increase in the area.
In fact, Garden Street was the sole educational facility in Brewster until 1957 when Henry H. Wells Middle school was built. Garden Street contained grades K-5th and eventually the 5th grade was moved to Henry H. Wells middle school in 1990. Eight years later, the 4th graders actually ended up moving to C.V. Starr. These changes took place in order to alleviate the overcrowding.
However, in 2011 it was announced that the school would close, mainly because of how old and unsafe the building was. Toxic and hazardous material began to accumulate in its final years and the building became more unstable as its structure began to weaken.
On the last day of Garden Street’s operation in June of 2012, all of the students and teachers came together and cried over all the memories that were made at the school. The teachers all lined up and waved one last goodbye to all of the students for the summer and to the school. There were many tears left behind. This is a sad topic to most people who live in Brewster and to the ones who actually attended this school since the school had been in operation for so long, giving them that nostalgic feeling of how school used to feel like. It was considered an important landmark to the district and community. But now its bricks and mortar are just left sitting on the property being untouched. Even if they wanted to try and renovate the school again, this would cost a couple million dollars.
As of right now, nature has covered up most of the building and there’s lots of graffiti that is located on the outside and inside of the school. And two years ago in 2022, there was also a news story of a couple of teenage boys who supposedly tried to burn down the school but fled shortly after. There wasn’t much more information found.
Four months ago, a chilling video was uploaded to YouTube: a walkthrough of the abandoned school. Walls were peeling, glass was broken, old student art still dotted the hallways, all the doors/floors were very creaky, and posters were left behind on the bulletin boards. One part shows a message from the last day of school that was never erased and left on the chalkboard. There weren’t many windows or most of them were boarded up, making the classrooms/hallways very dark and spooky.
Time is not always kind to our childhood memories. However, Garden Street was a very upbeat school, filled with an enormous amount of joyful kids who enjoyed special experiences. The class of 2025 are the final class of Garden Street students who will carry memories of Garden Street with them the rest of their lives.