The former Hamden Middle School in the Newhall section of town was first known as Michael J. Whelan Jr. High School.…More In the 1980's, when the town's second middle school, Sleeping Giant Jr. High School, closed, M.J. Whelan Jr. High School because Hamden Middle School, serving all of the town's seventh- and eighth-grade students. The school closed for good in 2006 when the new Hamden Middle School opened on Dixwell Avenue just down the road from Hamden High School. The former building is now the subject of a state and federal cleanup after it was determined that the area had in the past been used as a dump by the former Eklund Corporation.</p> <p>In the meantime the building is used as a town community center. The Hamden Police Department also has opened a substation in the building.</p>