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The Demolition of Cromwell Middle School

Back in 2022, the town of Cromwell voters approved a referendum to build a new middle school next to the old middle school. The plan was to build the new school on the soccer fields and a section of Watrous Park after a large portion of trees had been removed. Now that the new school is ready for the 2025 school year, demolition started in July of the old middle school. I am happy today to present some of the demolition footage. In this video you will see a Caterpillar 323F excavator crushing and loading the lockers and other scrap metal from both the boys and girls locker rooms into an open top trailer and a pair of Volvo excavators tearing down what is left of the boys locker room in the background. The area that was already demolished consisted of the art room, the home ec room, most of the gym, and the locker rooms. The cafeteria was also gone at this point. So in terms of footage I was able to acquire a lot. From the early stages where only the art and home ec rooms were demolished, to the bleachers getting ripped out of the gym, to lastly the final wall of the 7th grade wing getting ripped down. Demolition footage isn’t the easiest to acquire. It all depends on how the demolition company sets up the outside perimeter fence. I had tried years ago to get some footage when they demolished the old Moser school in Rocky Hill and again with the Xpect Discounts/Kmart building in Cromwell but I never was able to get any type of decent footage because I couldn’t get close enough. However, I was fortunate enough to be able to acquire a lot of footage of the middle school before they started demolishing the opposite side of the school which would’ve made it impossible to film anything. Built in 1954 and opened for the 1955 school year, Cromwell Middle School actually started as Cromwell High School until the current high school was built in 1980. Additions were added in 1956, 1962, 1979, and 2001, although the 2001 addition was only a small portable classroom that wasn’t even in use for years. So essentially the last major upgrade to the school was in 1979 when what would become the 7th grade wing was built. Hence why the school sadly needed to be replaced. The town never really fixed or upgraded anything. I was told by a town worker that there was a plan in place in 1997 to built 2 new wings and upgrade the entire school but that was shot down by the town council. The school was plagued by consistent leaks, an issue with a sewage smell from a pipe in the 8th grade boys bathroom, a section of the roof in the gym that was actually separating from the building that was patched several times, ripped seats in the auditorium, cracked bricks, and an overall lack of space. Ultimately, it was cheaper to just simply start from scratch and build a new school then refurbish and fix the old school. Now a lot of people in town say the school should be replaced simply because it’s 70 years old. Well that’s a stupid reason. Again if the town had done a better job of fixing things when they broke, the school wouldn’t have had to been replaced. I went to Xavier High School and that school was built in 1963, just 8 years after Cromwell Middle was built and if you went inside Xavier today you would think it was only 10 years old. That’s what happens when you fix and regularly update schools, they are built to last. Anyway, it is somewhat bittersweet seeing this school getting torn down since I actually went to this school in the early 90’s. I was actually fortunate enough to go on a final walk threw at the end of May with my daughter, and it was kinda cool to see her doing laps around the gym; the same gym I played basketball games at as a kid. Literally going on that walk threw was like going back in a time warp. Nothing has changed, it looks almost exactly the same except for some paintings in the halls and the floor of the cafeteria. It was cool to catch up with a few familiar faces and see a few of my older teachers too. The best part is my daughter could see where I went to middle school before it was torn down.