Picture Somers - Then And Now

SOMERS, CT — Today's foray into Somers history brings us back to the amazing photo book, Images of America: Somers, compiled in 2001 by Jeanne Kenyon DeBell for the Somers Historical Society. We take a look at the old Somersville Elementary School, which housed youthful students for more than six decades.

Constructed in 1933 at 41 School Street, the building replaced an earlier incarnation of the elementary school, and served as the town's grade school until closing in 1994. Somers Elementary School opened that year on a campus on Ninth District Road which includes the high school, middle school and town library.

In 1998, the School Street building became the private Grammar School at Somersville, later Somers Academy — The Grammar School. That institution closed in 2014.

According to town land records, Kenneth and Toni Nowak purchased the property in 2016 to open the Speech Academy of Somersville. The school provides an intensive speech and language-based academic program for students exhibiting speech and language, learning, auditory processing, apraxia and social skills challenges.

Here is a contemporary photo of the site, taken recently by yours truly.

Do you have a photo of an old Somers business which no longer exists, to which you own the rights and which we could feature in this column? Email tim.jensen@patch.com.

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