GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Jo Ellen Ford Nickels’ walk down memory lane takes her back over seven decades to the steps of the former Kensington School.

“I started here in ’49,” Nickels said.

She was known as Jo Ellen Ford back then.

“Just fun, simple times — and I could do cursive,” Nickels recounted as she stood outside the school Wednesday.

Everybody lived in the neighborhood. Everybody walked to school.

“Of course, this is our air conditioning. You push the window up for air conditioning,” Nickels said, pointing to an old classroom photo.

“We had a simple playground. We all were content. You jump-roped, played on the monkey bars, the swing,” Nickels said. “(The school) has a huge sandbox and a small diamond … ball diamond.”

Built in 1925, Kensington was once a fixture of the Black Hills neighborhood in southwest Grand Rapids. It closed as Adelante High School in 2004 and has been vacant ever since.

On Monday, the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education voted to demolish the building.

Nickels was part of an impromptu set of class reunions at the school Wednesday. A few dozen students from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s turned out to reminisce and say goodbye.

The alumni hoped to walk the school halls one final time, but time has taken a toll on the building. Conditions inside Kensington aren’t safe for the public.

“It’s been fun at least visiting with people,” Nickels said.

So the alumni walked around, looked at old photos and shared memories.

“It’s just the history,” Nickels said. “Look at the architecture. Think of the tools they had back then — nothing to what (they have) nowadays — and all the time and energy they put into designing and to building it.”

Once the building is demolished, the area will be turned into green space for the neighborhood.