The Marion Carll School faculty in the 1958-59 school year.
Miss Mildred Beck’s 5th grade class in the Turnpike School, the soon to be named Marion Carll School, and previously known as the Commack Grammar School. The photo was taken in 1958
That same year, the Mayfair Shopping Center opened and Grand Union and Woolworth’s moved in. Mary Minutillo remembered attending Catholic services in the Mayfair Movie Theater and then later in the basement of Gimbel’s, long before a Catholic church was built. Grand Union, Food Fair, Grant’s and the Chinese Restaurant would open up in 1963 and 1964 as the commercial property along Veteran’s Highway and Jericho Turnpike began to develop. In the 60’s and 70’s this commercial development would intensify and include Commack Road. The houses that fronted these main arteries slowly disappeared before the onslaught of commercial development that followed on the heels of an incredible housing boom. The impact of all this upon the surrounding area can be most readily appreciated by comparing the aerial photographs of Commack in the 1932 and 1962 as seen on the previous page. In a little over a decade the rural village of Commack with its open farm fields and woodlands had been obliterated by the sprawl of housing developments. The sudden creation of a suburban community in the midst of rural Suffolk County was to have a dramatic impact upon the Commack School District. Some of this impact upon the community can be gleaned from the fourth annual report of the District Principal in December of 1963. Entitled “Commack, A School District Under Explosive Growth,” the report opens with these words: "Few school districts in the United States have experienced the fantastic growth seen in Commack during the last four years. Within this period the school district has moved from a small semi-rural community with two and one-half buildings, thirtythree hundred pupils, and forty-six classrooms to Suffolk's County's third largest school district with thirteen schools, nine thousand
pupils, and three hundred and forty-one classrooms." The 1963 report is interesting because it highlights what happened in four short years from 1959 to 1963. The report notes that: ''In December 1959, the Commack School District housed 3,052 children in crowded and only partially adequate facilities. Only part-time education was available to each child in the fifteen room Marion Carll School, the four rented classrooms in the Commack Methodist Church building; and in the Kindergarten, first, and second grades of Smiths Lane School. Only the 551 youngsters in grades seven and eight at Smiths Lane School had a full time program of education." Four years later, the Commack School District had 13 schools and 9000 students who were all receiving a full time educational program. Starting with just the Marion Carll and Smith's Lane Schools, the School District began a remarkable building program that was to see the addition of eleven new schools in five years. By the end of 1963, the School District was keeping pace with the population growth in the community and had three more schools under construction with another two in the planning stages. With the opening of Commack High School in 1962, Commack finally had its own high school. The lack of a high school in Commmack had become more of an acute problem in the 1950’s as the number of high school aged youngsters increased. Surrounding school districts with high schools increased their School Year Opened Winnecomac (K-6) 1958 tuition and finally ran out Cedar Road (K-6) 1960 of room. The need for a Green Fields (K-6) 1961 high school of its own Wood Park (K-6) 1961 finally forced the New York North Ridge (K-6) 1962 State Educational officials Commack H.S. (7-12) 1962 into granting permission to Circle Hill (K-6) 1963 the Commack School Long Acres (K-6) 1963 District to establish its own South Ridge (K-6) 1963 high school. Starting with Old Farms (K-6) 1963 the school year of 1959Green Meadows J.H.S. (&-9) 1963 1960, the State allowed
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Mrs. Ketcham’s fourthgrade class in the Townline School. In 1958 the District was renting classroom space in the Commack Methodist Church building on Townline Road (the present-day site of Pumpkin Patch Nursery). Through the windows of the classroom can be seen the house that once served as the Methodist Church’s parsonage. The house was torn down when the modern Methodist Church was constructed.