By Carol Colaizzi
The last remnants from inside Ben Franklin Junior High School will be going, going, gone next month.
The New Castle school district and auctioneer Wayne Patterson have set Dec. 3 to auction the contents of the building.
And those contents are an eclectic mix. They range from a baby grand piano to a band saw and include bulletin boards and bookcases, sewing machines and storage cupboards.
The district has moved the seventh- and eighth-graders to the new junior-senior high on Lincoln Avenue. New furniture, fixtures and equipment were purchased.
Philip Lasky, president of the teachers union in the New Castle school district, spent the bulk of his career at Ben Franklin. An art teacher, he served at the Cunningham Avenue building from 1982 until it was closed at the end of the 2004-05 school year.
He noted “nothing was moved” because there’s “all new stuff at the junior high.”
Superintendent George Gabriel echoed that, saying “everything is brand new at the new building.”
Among the furniture and equipment to be sold, he noted, are student and teacher desks, computer stands, audio-visual carts, bookshelves from the library and the reception counter from the office.
“There’s also a pretty nice (public address) system,” Gabriel added, estimating it’s less than 10 years old.
Lasky pointed out some of the fixtures are original to the building and noted there is an old phone booth and “at least 1,000 lockers.”
Not surprising, considering the enrollment figures. Lasky noted the facility “was always a junior high” and estimated the peak enrollment was in the late 1960s or early 1970s with 1,300 to 1,400 students.
The low was in the late 1980s, he said, estimating about 600 students were in the school then.
“I’m sad to see it go,” Lasky said. “I think we should have maintained a junior high.” But he pointed out there are advantages, including the technological advances, offered by the new facility.
There are about 700 seventh- and eighth-graders in the junior high wing of the new building.
Gabriel estimated that portion of the new facility cost between $13 million and $15 million.
When Ben Franklin was new — the dedication was in April 1923 — newspaper accounts put the price tag at $1 million. And one called the building that contained print, woodworking, machine and other shops a “wonder school.”
The account quoted Dr. A.J. Dean of Columbia University’s faculty and “an authority on vocational training” as saying, “I consider it one of the three best schools of its kind in the United States.”
