The Brick Academy in Torrington is an old school building, constructed around 1835. It was probably moved at some point to its current location on George Street, if it is the same Brick Academy as described in the History of Torrington (1878), by Rev. Samuel Orcutt. According to that book, the Brick Academy, “a three story building in Wolcottville south of the bridge on Main street, was built as a Union meeting house and academy, and was used for both purposes quite a number of years. It has been occupied as a manufactory, a store, and a Masonic Hall.” Today the building is a private home.
Brick Academy, Torrington (1835)
I grew up in this house as Illona Petrovits, with three sisters and a brother, from 1952 to 1966. How we loved it!
I remember when we kids discovered the trapdoor to the attic. It was in the closet at the end of the hallway. We figured out a way to shimmy up there between the closet wall and an old cabinet my mother had placed there, and had a great time leaping from joist to joist amidst the old knob and tube electrical system. Then we learned how to climb out my sister’s bedroom window onto the roof of the kitchen, where we would hide on the opposite side of the peak and watch my father come home from work. He never knew.
We and our neighborhood chums used the cemetery next door as our private playground. The old vault was our sled hill in the winter. One winter there was an ice storm following a snow storm. All of the kids in town were able to ice skate over the entire cemetery. There were convenient “holes” in the graveyard fence for all of these activities, and we had an amazing array of hiding places when the police cruisers would do a drive through.
There was a tall old horse-chestnut behind the garage (I wonder if it is still there?). We used to hide up there and “spy” on the cemetery workers.
At various times we had chickens, goats, and even a pony (temporarily) in the old garage. It was a great neighborhood.