A Neighborhood Beacon Readies 100th Year Bash

Pierrette Comulada and Josh Silverman met in 1977 as students at Edgewood School. Now they’re proud parents of a fourth-grader who walks to school and studies in the same classroom in an evolved but enduring neighborhood institution.

The story of how the Westville family came to be is one of many that are emerging as the school community prepares to celebrate its 100-year anniversary in the fall. (Josh and PIerette are pictured in their school photos from the year they met.)

Planning for the bash is already continued with a session at the school Wednesday night. Organizers are looking for more alumni to get in touch with photos, artifacts and memories. Class photos and other artifacts, such as the 1964 newspaper clip pictured above, have already been popping up on the Edgewood Centennial Facebook page.

A group of 10 Westville women on the Edgewood Centennial Steering Committee met Wednesday evening at the school at 737 Edgewood Ave. to continue planning the event. The group is a mix of current and former parents, teacher and staff all with long histories at the school. One had seven children go through Edgewood; another taught there for 39 years.

The group settled on a date for three main centennial events: a kick-off picnic on Sept. 18 at Camp Cedarcrest in Orange, an open house at the school on Oct. 2 and a closing celebration on June 2 – 3, 2012 to mark the 100th graduating class.

The group is asking alumni .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with their name, year of high school graduation and email address, as well as any photos or memories they’d like to share.

Stephanie Fitzgerald (at left in photo with Sue Cohen) passed around two emails she’s already received from alumni. One, who lives in New Hampshire, said she’d be ​“delighted” to return to New Haven for the event.

“I am an artist and some of my best years of formal education were at Edgewood,” wrote another, who lives in Washington state.

The women shared the emails in the school library, one of 11 original rooms of a brick schoolhouse that opened its doors in 1911. At that time, it was called the Westville Public School, according to local historian and second-grade teacher Sue Matican. The Westville Public School was one of eight schools built between 1900 and 1912 to accommodate a boom of school-aged children brought by families moving to the area to work at factories.

It wasn’t until 1930, when bridges, cars and trolleys connected Westville to Edgewood over the West River, that the school joined the New Haven public school district and changed its name to Edgewood School, according to Matican’s research.

The old schoolhouse was left intact when the school was renovated and expanded in the 1990s. The petal-shaped design by Svigals + Partners is meant to represent oak leaves, the school’s symbol.

Matican shared that story, which is written in a New Haven history book for schoolkids, as the group gathered over Twizzlers and string-bean-shaped veggie chips to hash out details of the centennial.

The group decided to dedicate the centennial to the school’s chief historian, Richard Cavallaro (aka ​“Mr. C”) (pictured), who was active in planning the event until he passed away in February at age 79. Matican said she and Sue Cohen, the appointed historians on the Edgewood School Centennial Committee, were lucky enough to sit down with Cavallaro and take down some of his many stories before he died.

Cavallaro attended the school as a student then returned to teach there for many years. Artifacts he kept at his house will be displayed at the centennial, including an original bell that the principal used to use to announce the beginning of the school day.

Principal Bonnie Pachesa said the school doesn’t use a bell anymore. Students just go to their class in the morning. In the afternoon, the music teacher gets on the intercom and announces several waves of dismissal.

Unlike in the early days, many students now leave by bus: The school is now a magnet school serving 455 students in grades K‑8.

That’s a lot bigger — and more diverse — than what Pierrette Comulada Silverman remembers. She met her husband Josh in 1979, when she was in kindergarten and he was in first grade.

At that time, Pierrette and her sister were the only Hispanic students in the school, she recalled. She said there were three African-American families. The school is now 58 percent African-American and 13 percent Hispanic. She said she likes the added diversity of the school, as well as its neighborhood feel — the same feeling it had when she went there years ago.

Growing up in Westville, Pierrette and Josh lived a stone’s throw away from each other, at Westwood and Elmwood roads, not far from the school. Their sisters were best friends. 

“I had a huge crush on him since kindergarten,” confessed Pierrette.

Josh would ride a three-speed bike around Westville delivering the New Haven Register, back when it was an afternoon paper. One of the stops was at Pierrette’s house. They took Mr. C’s class together when they were in the 4th and 5th grades, and they attended public schools together through 12th grade. They liked each other, but they didn’t date until later in life, when they reconnected at a family barbecue at ages 27 and 28.

Now they live on Elmwood road right next to Josh’s parents. Pierrette, who’s 40, now works at Planned Parenthood, and Josh, who’s 41, designs, sells and installs A/V and home entertainment systems.

They live on the same block Josh grew up on. Josh said he walks their son Owen to school on ​“the same exact route that I used to take.”

He sees some of the same people he used to pass on his way to school. While the school is bigger, ​“there is still a neighborhood feel,” he said.

Asked if they plan to attend the centennial, Pierrette answered, ​“Of course!”

“We will be there,” she said. ​“We’re going to help out in any way that we can.”