The Old School didn’t have a gymnasium when it opened in 1891. Mary Hubbard’s bequest in 1914 built the addition on the back (south) of the school.
The out-of-bounds were the cinder block walls. The ceilings were so low that opponents likened playing on our basketball court to playing basketball in a swimming pool.
This is the gym where Dot Burch (Benson) scored 72 points in one game … as many points as the boys’ team scored in the entire season! In 1933 CHS girls beat Berlin 81-2. The girls went undefeated for 7 years until the League cancelled the sport because “all the other schools were demoralized trying to compete with Cambridge”.
The winter ball was held in this gymnasium only months before the Old School burned in Aug-1947. During my high school years in the 1960s, we used our gym/auditorium as our ballroom for Proms and Balls. Chairs were set up on the stage so spectators could arrive at 10pm to see the crowning of the king and queen.
In 1950, when the New School was being built, the West End firehouse burned. Village residents had to build a new school and a new firehouse. To control costs, plans for a new bus garage were scuttled and the Hubbard Addition became the “temporary” CCS bus garage (yeah, right, temporary … from 1951 to 2007).