Demolition Begins at Packard Middle School

The Long awaited demolition of the Sylvia Packard Middle School has begun, Town of Oyster Bay officials said.

"We started the week after Christmas," said Andrew Rothstein the Town's Director of Operations.

The school, which has been shut down since 2004, and was briefly replaced by a pre-school, will be torn down in favor of athletic fields.

The Town Board,  a contractor, Gramercy Group, Inc., to take down the building in July.

According to Rothstein the process has been very slow in order to ease concerns of the community.

"We're doing it almost surgically,"  he said, adding that no explosives have been used in the process. "We're doing it the old fashioned way, piece by piece," Rothstein said.

Prior to the demolition, asbestos abatement took place at the school, Rothstein said, adding, "everything went fine."

The process will take several weeks.

 After several years of debate over what to do with the site and a few instances of it was decided to put in the fields, which will be used by the community and Plainedge schools.

The Plainedge School District still retains ownership of part of the property.