HARRINGTON PARK, N.J. —— “The people of Harrington Park, a pretty New Jersey suburb on the West Shore Railroad, are greatly wrought up over the failure of the local school board to erect a schoolhouse for the accommodation of the children of the place. Harrington Park is rapidly increasing in population, and a schoolhouse is absolutely essential.”
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That’s how the New York Tribune started off an 1899 news report, “Citizens Want a Schoolhouse.”
At the time, Harrington Park’s population was about 269 people. With no school in town, families had no choice but to have their children walk to a one-room schoolhouse on Tappan Road in Norwood.
“Two public-spirited citizens offered the trustees sites upon which to erect a suitable school building, but the board rejected both,” according to the Tribune. “S. Carman Harriot made the first offer of a plot of land valued at $1,500. He, however, incorporated in his proposal a clause to the effect that a building should be erected not to cost less than $5,000. This restriction the trustees thought objectionable, and hence refused to consider the offer.”
Dr. William T. La Roche, a prominent New York City dentist, real estate developer and Harrington Park resident, also offered the school board a plot of land, and was similarly rejected.
“Why, sir, it is absurd,” Dr. La Roche reportedly said. “This place should have a schoolhouse, and we cannot get it too quickly. Why, do you know that the nearest schoolhouse is nearly 2 miles from here? To have children travel such a distance in this age of advancement is simply preposterous! This may have been all very well a half-century ago, but it will never do now.”
The problem of a local schoolhouse was particularly poignant at this time of year.
“In the winter children are compelled to remain home, being unable to plough through the snow to the school,” the Tribune wrote.
It would be three more years before Harrington Park had a school. The first school, a two-story, four-room building, opened on Hackensack Avenue in 1902, and is pictured above as it looked in 1909. The school took children from first grade through eighth, as well as what was called a pre-first grade class. There were three or four teachers on staff.
In 1910 additional classrooms and a small stage were erected on the second floor; however, for the most part, the second story was used for civic and social gatherings. Total enrollment usually remained at about 80 pupils with each eighth grade graduating class averaging about a dozen kids.
The final class graduated from the Hackensack Avenue school in 1926, as a new school building had opened the same year on Harriot Avenue. The 1902 school building still stands and was turned into the borough’s first apartment house.
–Kristin Beuscher