Sanford School Demolition Photos - May 9th

It's been a few weeks and Sanford Avenue School is nearly gone. All that remains, aside from the cafeteria and underground levels, are the centre staircase, foyer and lockers directly to the south, and all three levels of boys washrooms directly to the north.

It makes me sad every time I look at the pit of destruction and see the missing structure.

Below are more photos from today. Check out the full gallery here. The building should be totally destroyed by the end of day on Monday.

Sanford School Demolition Photos - May 6th

It's been a few days since I've put up any photos of the destruction of Sanford Avenue School, though I've been taking photos every few days of their progress. Or should I call it egress, as the destruction isn't really progressive. When is the blind destruction of a structure of historical interest actually progressive.

There are three galeries on the My Barton Village Facebook page with photos from April 30th, May 2nd and May 6th.

Sanford Memories

• Each year we held a haunted house in Gym B, which was a maze constructed of crash mats. The grade five class got to hide throughout the maze and pretend to be ghosts and scare the younger kids. We also made spooky things for younger kids to put their hands into, like cold spaghetti to simulate something gross.
• The Christmas concert was also held in Gym B, with parents sitting on wooden benches and the choir at the front of the gym singing Christmas carols.
• Every morning in the final week of school before Christmas break the entire student body would come to the front foyer after morning announcements to sing Christmas carols.

Sanford School Demolition Photos - April 26th

This is the crest I received at
my grade 5 graduation. 

It was a beautiful day today with mild temperatures, blue and sunny skies and another solid period of destruction of local heritage and history. Another day of demolition has passed with the work likely to stop for the weekend, save for some cleanup of the debris.

Sanford Memories

• In grade five I wasn't big on recess and didn't enjoy running around outside three times a day. So I chose to spend my free recess time at school helping the gym teacher (Mr. Ho) set up for the upcoming class. At the end of the year he let me choose any piece of gym equipment, except for a few things, to take home as a thank you. I chose a plastic hockey stick and hollow plastic baseball bat.
• There was one of those large green Nerf soccer balls lodged in the rafters of Gym A for as long as I could remember. I wonder if it's still there. Guess I'll never know.
• Because the school didn't start off as an elementary school there were fully functional locker rooms connected to both Gym A and Gym B, complete with benches and showers. They were off limits to students and weren't used. I don't know if the showers still worked.
• Gym A had pull out wooden bleachers as well as raised stadium seating at the south end of the gym, which was only accessible from a doorway located in the centre stairwell. This door was always locked with a chain and padlock.

Check out the full gallery at the My Barton Village Facebook page.

Sanford Demolition Photos - April 24th - 25th

My school t-shirt when I attended
Sanford from 1983-1990.

Two more days of demolition and much of the northern half of the school is gone. Everything in the front half of the school (east side) has been destroyed now (aside from rooms 101, 201 and 301) as is everything in the northern half of the school from the main office / washrooms north.

I must admit that it's heartbreaking to watch my childhood elementary school, which holds so many memories, being ripped down before my very eyes. I think for the rest of these series of galleries I'm also going to share some of my memories of the school. Not as a neighbour of the structure, but from when I was a child who attended the school every day for seven years.

Sanford Memories

• My grade five teacher Mrs. Tedder taught me a way to tie my shoes so that they wouldn't easily come untied. I still, to this day, call this a "Tedder Knot."
• I went to Walt Disney World when I was in grade three and wrote a postcard to my class from Florida. The postcard arrived at school the same day as I did and it was read aloud to my class with me present.
• My grade three teacher went on maternity leave shortly after the start of the school year and I had substitute teachers for much of the year.

Take a look at a few photos from the past two days, and see the full galleries (April 24th and April 25th) on our Facebook page.

Sanford Demolition Photos - April 22nd - 23rd

As much as it pains me to put up the photos of my former elementary school as it is destroyed, I feel the need to document Sanford's demise. I only wish that the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board had let someone in the private sector a chance to save the structure and reuse it instead of pulling the plug.

Such a shame.

Here are a few more photos from the demolition below and you can check out nearly fifty more photos from April 22nd and from April 23rd on our Facebook page.

Sanford School Demolition - April 20th Photos

After one full day of demolition at Sanford Avenue School (with the start late in the day on April 18th), half of the front of the school has been fully sheered off with rooms 109, 111, 113 and 115 now gone. Of course so are the same equivalent rooms on the second and third floors. If you look at the photos you can see the lockers in the hallways from what used to be classrooms.

My grade four classroom has been destroyed. My teacher in my grade four class was Mrs. Barton, ironically enough.

Check out a few photos below and the full gallery of 52 photos at the My Barton Village Facebook page.

Demolition of Sanford School Begins

Sanford Avenue School stands stipped
and ready to be torn down.

It has officially started. We knew the day would come and, even with the start a few weeks ago of window being shattered and historically significant parts of the building being removed and saved, it wasn't until late yesterday that the large wrecking vehicles began the actual demolition of Sanford Avenue School.

I've taken a lot of photos of the school, which I attended from JK - grade 5 nearly two decades ago. I was shocked to learn when I moved back to the neighbourhood that the school was a holding school, then closed and then finally slated for demolition. It makes me very sad and angry at the same time. This latest bit of destruction pains me even more now. Especially since I was denied access by the board for one last viewing of my childhood elementary school prior to the demolition process.

Below are a few photos of the school since the demolition process began a few weeks ago along with some photos of the school from this morning's wrecking crew work.

Over the course of the next few weeks (or days) I'll be updating with more photos of the school's demise, with full galleries on the My Barton Village Facebook page.

Click here for the gallery so far from April 19th's demolition.