In the very early 1950s, Father Thomas Sheehy announced that he was going to realize a dream of his to have a parish school for Our Lady of Lourdes. After a successful fund raising campaign, he made good on that promise, beginning construction in 1951 or early 1952. In my earlier blog, I spoke of how various shortcuts for us were cut off by home building...well, here we lost another one, a diagonal path across the empty lot where the School now stands.
We lived almost across the street at 88 Hawthorne Place, and witnessed the construction first hand. Indeed, in the summer of 1952, my sister and I sold lemonade to the workers. One thing I remember above all was that when they dug the foundation, they hit water...lots of water! The hole resembled a swimming pool. After much pumping, they managed to dry the hole sufficiently to put down a foundation. Unfortunately, this required much waterproofing and a thicker floor than normal, and a resulting ceiling height in the School Hall far lower than originally planned. For that reason, we never could play basketball down there as the ceiling was too low. We played intramural basketball in the gym of the Davison Avenue School.
The School opened in September, 1953 as a 2 story building with the Hall below. The third story was added later. As an altar boy, I got "designated" along with others to assist the Dominican Sisters who staffed the school in loading the brand new texts among the desks in each classroom. I will never forget the smell of those books! The Sisters lived in the Convent across the street, at the corner of Park Boulevard and what is now Sheehy Place. The School was dedicated in the Fall of 1953 by Bishop Thomas Molloy of the Brooklyn Diocese to which Our Lady of Lourdes then belonged.
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When it opened, the School held grades 1 through 6. I was in the 6th grade, and, in 1954, grade 7 was added, and, in 1955, grade 8. As a result, I was in the first graduating class in June, 1956. At our graduation, Father Cuddeback, who became pastor after Father Sheehy's death, told us that he felt like "an imposter", since it had been Father Sheehy's dream that was now being brought to fulfillment. It is wonderful that that School has continued to this day!
Dave Cartenuto, Briarcliff Manor, NY
