Hackensack, NJ Community Message Boards
General Category => Hackensack History => Online Auctions/Local Images (Moderated by BLeafe) => Topic started by: BLeafe on July 19, 2010, 12:28:45 AM
-
Description:
1967 HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY - ESSIE OLIVE ABEEL PRIVATE SCHOOL - YEARBOOK. SOME WRITING IN YEARBOOK. APPROX 48 PAGES. IN VERY FINE CONDITION.
1969 HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY - ESSIE OLIVE ABEEL PRIVATE SCHOOL - YEARBOOK. SOME WRITING IN YEARBOOK. APPROX 52 PAGES. IN VERY FINE CONDITION.
The Essie Olive Abeel Preparatory School was located at 293 Lookout Ave.
I don't think I've ever heard of this school before and there's no other mention of it on this site. I found online evidence of some alumni of the school and that it existed as recently as 1998, but that's about it.
Anyone have any info on this place?
.
-
Could this have been the location of what was formerly known as the Beal(sp) Academy?
-
Was located in a white clapboard building, south side of Lookout between Prospect and Clarendon. Across the street was a small playground and field (now a midrise bldg. and grassy lot). During the summer playground was used for summer rec. City of Hackensack. There was a nice hill for sleighriding during the Winter. Only knew a few people who went there, not a very large school at all.
-
later on it was the Moon church. it was torn down to build 290 Anderson St.
-
The Essie Olive Abeel Private School was located at 293 Lookout Ave. It was in operation from 1920 to about 1973. It started in Essie's living room and grew over the years. At some point, she bought the house next door and connected the two of them. Her son, Paul Howard Abeel taught there and ran it in the final years. Essie also had a farm in the Poconos where she set up a summer camp. Some of the students would end up there in the summers. Essie died in 1968. She is my maternal grandmother and was always a strong, iconic figure for our family.
-
As the auction says, it was at 293 Lookout Ave. The building was torn down in the early 90's. it was a large 2 1/2 story frame building that took 2 or 3 lots up on the block. the parking lot for 290 Anderson St occupies the site, I think they took down one more house also building the lot. In its final years it was the New Jersey Headquarters for the Moonies.
-
I remember the buildings when they were rented out as apartments in the 1970's, and up until around 1990, when they were vacated. It is now the rear parking lot of 290 Anderson condominiums, as someone else posted. This was a small African-American neighborhood with a great many children playing in the street and on the front yards at all times. It was about 5 or 6 consecutive houses which were 2 or 3 family structures, just on the mid-section of that block (south side), plus the older apartment directly across the street was also heavily African-American. It was a little enclave, not continguous with the African-American neighborhood on the eastern block of Hamilton Place. Probably containing about 100 people. Two of the properties on Clinton Place that went all the way back to Lookout fenced off the rears with ugly barbed wire fences.
The apartment building went condo and all the units "turned over", resulting in some changes there. And the houses that were occupied by African-Americans were purchased and surgically removed, to the exact house, for the construction of the parking lot at 290 Anderson Street. Michael Brower was the builder. A large luxury condo, the Prospect-Ashley was constructed nearby on the same block. Given all the changes, all the barbed wire fencing was then taken down.