The annual ringing of the bell on top of the Chestnut Street School took place on Friday and we joined teachers and students to witness the tradition. Students were led by Chestnut’s principal, Dr. Lisa Minicozzi and each child got to ring a model of the bell, built by the WH Historical Society’s John Shaud. They got to see the space upstairs in the school where the bell rope is connected, and staff climbed up to the roof to get us some pictures and ensure the bell was heard throughout the school (and the community) at dismissal time.
History of the Chestnut Street school – Courtesy West Hempstead Historical Society:
In the 1800’s, West Hempstead and Franklin Square students shared the Trimming Square School now known as John Street School on Nassau Boulevard where Walt Whitman once taught. By 1912, the twenty-nine families of West Hempstead formed School District #27 in order to qualify for state funding and better serve the needs of their children. School Board Member Edwin C. Duryea sold part of his farm property on Chestnut Street for $3500 to serve as a central location for the site of the four room schoolhouse. By January 1913, the coal heated $19,834.50 school opened with twelve arithmetic books, twenty desks, two dictionaries and two teachers who each taught two grades. The first graduation took place for twelve students in 1914. Town of Hempstead paved Chestnut Street, a
well was dug, electricity was installed and by 1925 the school got a phone, Hempstead 3493 so they did not have to use Edwin Duryea’s across the street. The Ladies Home Bureau got together and organized a soup kitchen in the garage by the school thus officially starting the Nassau County School Lunch Program.
By 1925, Chestnut had 165 students and doubled in size to eight classrooms. In 1930 and again in 1948, Chestnut Street School was expanded to accommodate West Hempstead’s rapidly growing population. Farms were being sold off to housing developments and our agricultural heritage was swiftly giving way to a commuter community made possible by improved electric trains and the opening of the Southern State Parkway. In 1962, West
Hempstead School District had over 5000 students, 550 of them at Chestnut Street School. Chestnut Street Schoolcelebrated its 50 th Anniversary in 1953 but by 1967 it was shuttered and closed temporarily, the oldest school in the mid Nassau District, for declining enrollment. Somewhere around the late 1970’s, it opened its doors to students again briefly before transitioning to become the home of the enlarged West Hempstead Public Library in 1982. The ground floor of the1948 addition of Chestnut Street School served as a library from 1982 until 2007 while the second floor was the School District Administration Office. In 2001 however, the original 1913 school house and 1925 and 1930 additions became the West Hempstead Kindergarten Center.
In 2013, Chestnut Street School celebrated its 100th Anniversary with a cake replica of the original schoolhouse donated by Riesterer’s Bakery, lots of bell ringing, old-fashioned games and a special visit from Edwin C. Duryea’s daughter, Helen. Helen, by the
way, attended George Washington School which was also built by her father Edwin C. Duryea. Each year, on or about January 13th , you may hear the original Meneely Bell of Chestnut Street School ring at dismissal in celebration of yet another anniversary. The bell tower is the logo of the West Hempstead Historical Society.
