By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
It’s no joke on April 1, 2013, the Eldridge Park School will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
And, to get the elementary school’s 279 students in the mood for a celebration, school administrators unveiled a special birthday song at a brief school-wide assembly last week.
”Eldridge Park is our great school, it’s 100 years old this year. We learn here every day, we play and grow with cheer. Hooray for Eldridge Park School. Happy birthday, Eldridge Park School. It is 100 years old this year,” the children sang Friday morning.
Then, in a pinwheel parade, 75 third-graders and 25 staff members each carried a small plastic pinwheel out of the multipurpose room and planted it in the grass outside the Lawn Park Avenue school. Coincidentally, there were 100 pinwheels one for each year.
The Eldridge Park School has come a long way since it opened its doors as a two-room school in 1913, said school librarian Michele Immordino. She is coordinating the yearlong celebration, which includes a fundraiser at Capt. Paul’s Firehouse Dogs Sept. 22 and an “amateur night” which is open to the public on Oct. 26.
The idea for Amateur Night grew out of research into the school’s history, Ms. Immordino said. It was discovered that the Parent Teacher Organization sponsored an “amateur night” during the 1950-51 school year, she said. Adults and children auditioned for the event, which was spread over two nights. Admission was 60 cents, she said.
”We are going to do ‘Amateur Night’ for one night,” Ms. Immordino said. Auditions for the Oct. 26 amateur night are slated for Oct. 5 at the Eldridge Park School, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The Oct. 26 event starts at 7 p.m. at the school.
Also next month, students will begin work on a school history mural in the main hallway. And special T-shirts honoring the anniversary may be ordered at all of the events. The yearlong event will culminate in a special celebration in the spring, Ms. Immordino said.
And the search is on for old photographs of the school, as well as school alumni and anyone else who has been connected with the school during its history, she said.
Until the Eldridge Park School was built, Ms. Immordino said the children in the Eldridge Park neighborhood attended the Slackwood School. But as more families moved into Eldridge Park, they sought a school in their neighborhood and that’s why the Eldridge Park School was built, she said.
”It was much different (in early 1900s),” Ms. Immordino said. “Children traveled far to go to school. They were spread out. The people in the neighborhood wanted the children to have a real neighborhood school.”
There were two teachers at the Eldridge Park School Irene Pycraft Rich, who doubled as the school principal, and Mary O’Brien Cleary, Ms. Immordino said. The two women taught students in grades 1 through 8. There were 18 graduates in the first graduating class.
But the burgeoning residential development in the neighborhood meant more classrooms were needed, Ms. Immordino said, so the roof was raised and two more classrooms were added on a second floor in 1916. To accommodate increased enrollment, a one-room school the Grove School was moved and attached to the Eldridge Park School.
Still, the children kept coming. In 1923, an eight-room addition was built that resulted in 13 classrooms, she said. School officials decided in 1947 to split up the grades, and send the older students to Slackwood School for lack of classroom space.
Another addition was built in the front of the school in 1955, providing more classrooms, Ms. Immordino said. Portable classrooms were placed on the school grounds in 1967. But by the mid-1970s, enrollment began to drop and the Eldridge Park School was closed in 1978. School district officials rented it to the Mercer County Special Services School District to provide classrooms for handicapped children.
The pendulum began to swing again, and the Eldridge Park School was reopened as a 4th-grade-only school in 1990 to handle a growth spurt in the number of students. The grade-configuration changed after a few years, and now it is a grades pre-K to 3 school.
”It’s going to be a great year. It’s exciting to be a student here,” Ms. Immordino said.

