Groton - The last time Electric Boat tore down an old building next to Ken and Barbara Acker's house, hoards of rodents and insects invaded their home, and they don't want it to happen again.

The couple, who live at 39 Chicago Ave., got a letter from EB last month saying it had received approval to demolish the old Colonel Ledyard School next door.

Ken Acker wrote back that he hoped EB would do a better job razing the school than it did taking down a building on the same property in the 1970s, releasing "hundreds of rodents and thousands of termites into the general area, resulting in the immediate infestation of both my house and garage."

"My wife and I have lived in our 39 Chicago Avenue home for 47 years," he wrote in the Dec. 2 letter. "The property and structures have been in my wife's family for nearly 70 years.

"The house and garage have withstood countless formidable acts of God over that 70-year span with no noteworthy damage. Sadly, it took an act of man to cause the only appreciable damage ever incurred (by house or garage)."

Electric Boat spokesman Dan Barrett said the company received a copy of the letter from the Ackers on Friday and "have not had the opportunity to respond to them personally. We will respond and look forward to addressing and answering their concerns."

EB has occupied the former school since 1962 and keeps offices and administrative areas there, Barrett said. The company plans to demolish the school in 2015, though a specific date was unavailable. EB hasn't yet decided how it will use the property after the school is razed, Barrett said.

The Five Corners area -which is at the intersection of Poquonnock Road, Mitchell Street, Benham Road and Chicago Avenue - used to be a bustling neighborhood with shops, homes, and many Italian families, Town Historian James Streeter said.

"It was almost classified, almost like a little Italy," he said.

The Universal Food Store, a neighborhood grocery, stood where Dunkin' Donuts is now. Yellow Front Liquor Store was open next door, as well as a cleaner's down the street. A movie theater offered a place to go out and two houses stood where Charter Oak Federal Credit Union is now. Subway restaurant was an ice cream parlor first, then a local pizza house. Few businesses were open on Chicago Avenue.

"That's what Chicago Avenue was - it was a neighborhood. And that's what the Colonel Ledyard School was - it was a neighborhood school. And everybody walked to school. That was the thread of all these little neighborhoods," Streeter said.

The school was built in about 1930, then sold to Electric Boat after the town built the new Colonel Ledyard School on West Street, which also later closed, Streeter said.

Need for parking

The company's expansion was a "godsend" to Groton financially, but also altered the landscape because an employer with thousands of workers needs amenities like parking, Streeter said.

"They bought houses and tore the houses down and blacktopped them. And then other people in the neighborhood bought houses and blacktopped (them) or covered their yard so they could rent space and make money," he said.

Fields became parking lots. Cars now park where residents once let goats out to keep down the grass.

The school was the one place that was always there, even as houses came down, a mini-mart went up, the grocery store disappeared, a Dunkin' Donuts moved in and the school yard was paved.

"I don't want to see it go down," said Barbara Acker, 70, looking out her living room window this week. "It's sad enough thinking about it."

The EB parking lot comes within about four feet of the Ackers' house, which her great-uncle built.

The family has had to learn to adjust to a different neighborhood, Ken Acker said.

"On a daily basis, those of us who border the EB property have to deal with an unending flow of cigarette butts, disposable coffee cups, sandwich bags, gum and candy wrappers, donut boxes and credit-union receipts strewn about our properties by passersby. Admittedly, we've succumbed to that as being a by-product of a commercial-property neighborhood," he wrote.

About 10 years ago, workers cut down the 30-foot maple tree her grandfather planted near the stop sign at Chicago Avenue and Forest Street, also near the school, Barbara Acker said. She was in kindergarten when he planted the tree.

"It was a completely different life than now," she said. "Great big playground, fields and three basketball courts and a baseball field with a backstop." Children gathered at the school, separated from her house by a short wall she'd leap over. "In the summertime, we'd play kick the can, or whatever. We practically lived there."

"I can certainly sympathize with her because I've watched the neighborhood dissipate," Streeter said. "And that's what she's saying: 'This (school) is the last thing that was part of our neighborhood.' And it was."

Barbara and Ken Acker met when he was in the U.S. Coast Guard and married in 1969. He once worked for EB.

"When I worked at EB I thought it was the most wonderful place in the world," Ken Acker said. Even now, he doesn't want to speak badly of it; but if he believes a company fails to do something basic, he'll say so.

The building EB demolished in the 1970s was known as the "Greenhouse" and stood between the school and the Ackers' house.

Ken Acker said he paid thousands of dollars to deal with damage after the infestation.

He asked EB to take "preemptive measures to contain and destroy all rodents and all insects" before razing the school next year.

"Electric Boat is committed to being a good neighbor and playing a positive, active role in the community," Barrett, the EB spokesman, said. "We also comply with all applicable regulations and work to ensure we are having a positive impact on local residents."

More families have moved into the area recently, and that gives Barbara Acker hope. She'd like the neighborhood to come back. But until then, she doesn't have the heart to watch EB demolish the school.

"She would cry," Ken Acker said. "I absolutely guarantee it."

d.straszheim@theday.com

@DStraszheim