The Old Balmville School, at the corner of Route 9W and Balmville Road in the Town of Newburgh, has been torn down.

According to a representative from the New York State Education Department (NYSED), the Newburgh Enlarged City School District (NECSD) currently owns the property. The Newburgh district was not available for comment and has not released any public notice on the future of the property.

At the November 23, 2021 regular board meeting, the Newburgh Board of Education passed the motion to move forward with the demolition. The bid for demolition was awarded to Gorick Construction Co., Inc.

On Dec 27, 2021, the States Parks Division of Historic Preservation (DHP) told the engineering firm Clark Patterson Lee (CLP) Architecture Engineering Planning that the Old Balmville School was eligible for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places back in 2000.

The engineering firm submitted demolition plans for the school that were reviewed by DHP. DHP recommended to the engineering firm to provide a report on the building’s condition, structural integrity and explore other means for the building instead of demolition. It is not clear as to why their response came several days after the demolition occurred and the parks representative did not respond to our requests for comment.

“I was really sad to see the building while it was being demolished. I believe that that building could have been saved,” Orange County Historian Johanna Porr-Yaun said. An alumni of Balmville School, Michael J. Hernandez sent letters to the state and education officials to discuss the future of the building. “The Balmville School of 1897 was the people’s school, of the people, by the people, for the people,” Hernandez said. Balmville alumni Linda Lou Sully was also sad to see the building torn down. “I had gone by the school hundreds of times, lived not far away and to watch it deteriorate was just really really sad,” Sully said.