Time to say goodbye to North Toronto CI

[attach]1720[/attach][attach]1721[/attach][attach]1722[/attach]They may be entering a gleaming new high school this fall, but the North Toronto Collegiate community is finding it hard to say goodbye to 70 Roehampton Ave.

With the school year coming to a close and demolition set for the summer, students past and present took the opportunity to walk the hallowed halls of the 98-year-old building during a May 14 closing house.

“I know the building is important and it has a lot of memories for people,” principal Joel Gorenkoff said. “It’s not necessarily just bricks and mortar.”

It certainly isn’t for alumnus Neal Irwin, who guided groups through the halls.

“Some of my best memories are just playing football,” said Irwin, who attended the school in the late 1940s. “I played in the intramural league.”

Irwin was very fond of his instructors because they brought excitement to the classroom.

“One of my teachers taught French and German and I remember her so well. She taught us German songs to learn the language.”

Current North Toronto CI students said they’ll miss the hangouts that their peers staked out as their own.

“There’s a stairway to nowhere which is just a staircase. You go up it and it leads to nowhere but a wall. There’s also a couch area where the grads hang out,” Amila Sakarakoon said.

“We’re so familiar with the school,” Tracy He said. “I’m gonna miss it a lot.”

During the tour, the building was showing her age.

In the auditorium, duct tape kept filler from overflowing out of the seat cushions. In classrooms, paint was peeling off the walls and the cupboards marked with paint and pen. Floors creaked with every step.

Hanging on the wall in the teachers staff room was a relic today’s cell phone-toting teens wouldn’t likely recognize: an unused rotary phone.

North Toronto CI went from being housed in the North Toronto Town Hall in 1910 to an established school in 1912.

Over the years, it expanded to meet the needs of the growing community. The building’s southern portion is an addition, along with the east and west wings. The school later graduated to three floors complete with an auditorium and cafeteria.

Seven years ago, when it became clear the current building couldn’t withstand any more renovations, officials began plans for a new school.

But some of 70 Roehampton will live on.

Bricks from the old building are going into the new facility.

“All of the history, banners, honour boards, heritage artifacts and trophies are going to be displayed on the walls and we are building a heritage room so students can get a sense of the history,” Gorenkoff said.

But this has not stopped students from taking their own pieces of history home, including the block letters from the school name on the building’s exterior.

Now, students and staff eagerly await the future in the new school on Broadway Avenue.

“The land the old school is on will become a football field,” Gorenkoff said. “We’ve never played a home game at the school, so that is quite exciting. There will be wireless internet for computers, and more adequate facilities.

“The kids will have a facility that they deserve.”