Demolition of St. Mary's starts today

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- After 80 years of classes, weddings, masses and funerals, today marks the finale for St. Mary's School.

Demolition of the building is expected to begin this morning with removal of its bell, cross, statue of St. Mary, namestone, cornerstone and the cross medallions near the top of its face.

St. Mary's School, which also housed the church until 1970, will join the convent -- which stood just a few feet south of it up until a few days ago -- as only a memory. The decision to demolish the structures came after the parish could not find new users for the property. The school was closed in 1999 and the convent followed in 2000.

Demolition begins in earnest Tuesday, continues Wednesday and takes a break for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and Friday.

The future of the spaces formerly occupied by those buildings remains undecided. The Rev. Douglas Grams, St. Mary's pastor, said the church is examining options for the property although nothing is finalized.

After the school is completely demolished, many of the materials including bricks, steel beams and leftover wood will be sold for reuse. The school was virtually gutted a few weeks earlier as its interior was harvested for its flooring, blackboard and other salvageable items.

The combined St. Mary's School and Church were built in 1922 to accommodate a growing Catholic population on the south side of New Ulm. In its heyday, St. Mary's was one of four area Catholic schools that operated as Central Catholic Schools, which eventually became New Ulm Area Catholic Schools. Church services were also held there until the Church of St. Mary was built in 1970. The school closed its doors forever in 1999.

A green space that includes the trees and lilac bushes that surrounded the convent, a shrine to St. Mary using the school's original statue and more parking for the Church of St. Mary across the street are some of the ideas that have been discussed, but all of those plans are just in the talking stages. Grams said he hopes the plans for the lots will be finalized by spring.

Much of what was salvageable from the convent was removed before the backhoe knocked the building in on Friday. The school is in similar shape because it is was pretty much picked clean in October, he added.

"Every floor has disappeared but two. One has linoleum and the other has indoor-outdoor carpet," he said. "All the blackboards are gone."

The front steps were recently removed from the school. Grams said the parish is looking at using the wood, which is pure maple, for a conference table. The pastor said that between six and eight people have expressed an interest in the many tons of Springfield brick from both the school and the convent. The steel beams inside both buildings are going to a scrap iron dealer and the remaining pieces of wood will be resold by the demolition company for profit.

"Anything that was salvageable was taken out of the convent, but with the water damage most of it was beyond reuse. The stuff they could've reused, they did," Grams said.

Friday's demolition brought one concern: it's OK to grab a brick or two as a souvenir just as long as it's not while the demolition crew is working, Grams said.

Because he couldn't make connections to get the bell down in time, a bell-ringing Sunday following St. Mary's 10 a.m. mass didn't go as planned. Grams gave parishioners an update on building at the end of the last mass on Sunday.

He plans to be back out on Minnesota Street with his videocamera rolling when the crew begins work again today.