HISTORIC LOOK AT GREEN BROOK SCHOOLS

The first school was a log structure built around 1765 near the current intersection of Warrenville Road and Greenbrook Road. The next was a small one-room school near where the current firehouse stands on Greenbrook Road. It was called the Little Red School. Records don’t show exactly when it was constructed. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by fire in the early 1800’s. After that fire, the school was replaced by the Gray School, also a oneroom schoolhouseBy 1923 the student population had climbed to 38, prompting a new school to be built, which had two rooms, at the site of the current Municipal Building. At the time, this land area was part of North Plainfield Township and in 1932 became Green Brook Township, with its own local government.
It was soon realized that the new gigantic two-room school was no longer adequate to meet the needs of the students. At first, another room was added in the basement for the older students in 1933, but that proved to offer only a temporary solution, so on January 4, 1938 ground was broken for yet another new school on Andrew Street.
School opened in September of that year with Miss Irene Feldkirchner as the first principal. She was so beloved, both as a former teacher and as principal, that the school was given her name in later years – the Irene E. Feldkirchner Elementary School.
As always, the population grew. There were 120 youngsters in 1938, not counting the 36 high school age students. To educate those 36, they were enrolled in the North Plainfield or Bound Brook High Schools. You can imagine the next chapter of what happened after that as the population continued to grow
To learn more about our history, come join us. Green Brook Cultural, Heritage and Historic Preservation Committee meets the 3rd Thursday of every month at Town Hall, 1st Floor Conference Room 7:30 pm. Visit us at www.gbhsnj.org.