The Jack Abrams Woodbury Page

Woodbury Avenue Elementary School

Woodbury Road at Soundview Road

Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA

1923-1987

(www.woodburyavenue.org)

We are pleased to welcome you to the Jack Abrams Woodbury Page, which is dedicated to the memory of a fine old educational institution, its faculty, staff and alumni. While located on what was then called Woodbury "Avenue" in Huntington, our elementary school was called Woodbury Avenue School (or, "Woodbury Ave. Grade School", as inscribed on the cornice of the building), although the avenue later came to be known as Woodbury "Road".  The school was constructed in 1923-24, as reflected by the 1923 cornerstone date on the northeast corner of the building. It had classes from kindergarten through 8th grade from the 1924-25 school term until Robert K. Toaz Junior High School opened in 1939; thereafter, it had K through 6. (School photo taken by Laurie Lucey, Class of '71.) 


Woodbury's first principal (1924-1926) was Mrs. Albert Cantrell (née Morris), followed by Donald Smith (1926-1930) and J. Taylor Finley (1930-1943), who later served as principal at Toaz Junior High, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, and Superintendent of Schools. The next to serve was John Black (1943-1951), who was followed in the job by J. Allen Matthews (1951-1962). Jack Abrams, a 6th grade teacher at Woodbury and the district science coordinator, assumed the principal's chair for three years (1962-1965) before teaching for a year in England as a Fulbright-Hays exchange teacher. Jack Whitney was a 6th grade teacher at Woodbury (1957-63), a social studies teacher at Toaz (1963-65), and principal at Woodbury (1965-69).  Walter Turyn then managed Woodbury (1969-70), followed again by Mr. Abrams, who administered the school for its final year as part of Huntington's Union Free School District #3 (1970-71).

Following the 1970-71 school year, the building was leased by Western Suffolk BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), then known as BOCES III, from 1971 through 1973, as a pre-James E. Allen special education learning center. After BOCES moved the Woodbury Learning Center to the old South Huntington High School building on Walt Whitman Road in Huntington Station, the West Hills Baptist Church bought the building and set up the Huntington Christian School there from 1975 through 1986. After 64 years of service, the facility was finally demolished in 1987, and a townhouse development was built on the site.

(Historical overview courtesy David Jackson '78, Laurie Lucey '71, Joanne Ahern-Senk '70, Jack Abrams, Virginia "Ginna" Potter Jacobsen '45, and Huntington Union Free School District.)

 

Archival Contributions are Welcome

The Woodbury Page was born in 1999, when Pete Pearlman (Woodbury '61) and I re-established contact after over 30 years, pooled our class portraits together, and I posted them on a WebTV home page.  It took off from there, with many former students, staff, administrators, and next-of-kin generously emailing their own additions to the Page.  Their voluminous contributions, credited at the bottom of this page and throughout this site, are greatly appreciated.  The site was renamed in memory of former 6th grade teacher and principal Jack Abrams following his death on June 24, 2020.

 

Any photos, scannable memorabilia, movie clips, or sound recordings of the school building, playground events, plays, concerts, teachers, students, classroom activities or class portraits can be submitted for addition to the page. Just email them to me as scanned attachments, or mail them to me and I will scan them and return them promptly.  Video or audio submissions can be emailed as attachments or as links to existing home pages or YouTube posts.  And any help you can provide with respect to misspelled, missing or erroneous name identifications for any of the existing pictures would be most welcome.  (I normally respond promptly - certainly within 48 hours.)


Terry Valentine, Woodbury Class of '61 (Huntington High School '67)
E-mail: terryv123 @ yahoo.com (without the spaces)

 

Class Photo Albums & Memorabilia Scrapbooks

 

 

 

 

 

Faculty and Staff

 

Movie and Sound Clips

Four movie clips, of Woodbury (and Huntington High) school activities, taken circa Fall/1967 on 8MM movie film by the late Emily Belle, first grade teacher, are linked below, courtesy of her son, Bob Belle (HHS '68).

Additionally, there is a 42-second sound clip of the infamous "Oscar Mayer Wiener" prank from the Huntington High School Class of '67 graduation ceremony (linked below).

Also, I have a 74-minute MP3 audio recording of nearly the entire HHS '67 graduation ceremony.  (Several of the speeches are hard to hear clearly, and some of the graduate name-readings were omitted.)  At 125 MB, it's too big a file to store here or to email as an attachment, but on request I can email you an iCloud link, which will allow you 30 days to download it from there.  Contact me at terryv123 @ yahoo.com (without spaces) for the link.

 

Other Links of Interest

From Pamela Silkworth Finn's hall locker:

 

Additional Woodbury pages:

 

Some links of related interest:

 

Long Island & New York area newspapers:

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks go to Alan, Alex, Alice, Allen, Andy, Anne, Art, Barry, Bill, Bob, Bud, Caryn, Cathy, Charlene, Charles, Charley, Charlotte, Chris, Christine, Chuck, Colleen, Cynthia, Dan, David, Donna, Doug, Ed, Ellen, Emily, Gail, Gale, Georgia, Ginna, Hazel, Helen, Howard, HuntingtonHistory.com, Huntington Union Free School District, Jack, James, Jane, Jeff, Jim, Joan, Joanne, JoAnne, John, Judy, Julia, Kathy, Katie, Ken, Laurie, Leona, Leslie, Linda, Lisa, Liz, Lois, Lorraine, Louise, Lynn, Marcia, Margaret, Mark, Mary, Meg, Michael, Mike, Nancy, Pam, Pat, Paul, Pete, Randy, Rich, Richard, R.J., Robert, Robin, Ronn, Ruth, Ruth-Ann, Sandy, Shirley, Skip, Steven, Stu, Susan, Sylvia, Ted, Teresa, Theresa, Tommy, Vicki, Virginia, Warren and Winnie for your creative, technical, archival and name identification contributions to this page.