Young readers help celebrate new site for the library.
Ray Ewing

Edgartown Library Stakes Its Claim at New Location

Edgartown School students joined town and library officials Monday to celebrate the first visible marker of Edgartown’s new library: a sign announcing the beginning of the project. A group of students from kindergarten, first grade and third grade at the school posed for a picture in front of a sign that says: “Watch your new library being built here.” The sign is in front of the old brick Edgartown School, which will be demolished this summer to make way for the new library.

Edgartown School students joined town and library officials Monday to celebrate the first visible marker of Edgartown’s new library: a sign announcing the beginning of the project. A group of students from kindergarten, first grade and third grade at the school posed for a picture in front of a sign that says: “Watch your new library being built here.” The sign is in front of the old brick Edgartown School, which will be demolished this summer to make way for the new library. “We’re really trying to get the youth involved in the project,” said library trustee Carl Watt, noting that students are the “next generation of library users.”

Three cheers for the new library!
Ray Ewing
Three cheers for the new library!
Ray Ewing

The sign will “let everyone know we’re well underway,” selectman and library building committee member Michael Donorama told the group, adding that they’d soon see a hole where the old Edgartown school now sits. “It’s a beautiful day and we’re ready to go.”

“I’m excited about the new library because I’ll be able to walk there from my house and the school,” Camden Townes, seven, told the crowd.

The new library is expected to cost $11 million, with about half the funding coming from the state. Construction on the library is expected to take two and a half years.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/18/2013 - 16:19

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John Connecticut

$11 mil plus a few mil lost on the Warren House? I thought they were going to convert the school; not tear it down. The current library is lightly used so this must be a "build it and they will come" deal. what the heck, it's only money.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/18/2013 - 17:18

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islanddogs2 edgartown

Tear down the building? Is this really the most cost effective way to have a new library?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 06/18/2013 - 21:11

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John Somewhere-in-the-Middle, USA

Two and a half years to build? I've built forty story high rise office towers in Boston in less time. Don't forget to look for ancient artifacts during the demolition......

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/19/2013 - 00:02

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Ken S Edgartown

The new library will become one of the jewels of Edgartown. I can't wait for it to open.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/19/2013 - 10:36

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Paulli D Edgartown

The world is going digital, and we are spending millions on brick and mortar. Kids today have no idea what the dewey decimal system is nor do they care. For the money, buy all senior citizens an iPad or Nook, and give them a Amazon Account. As the younger generations gets older, I am sure they are not going to look for a library. High schools and universities are removing books, and going digital. This is a big boondoggle, that in 10 years will be another dinosaur and be another ball and chain on the taxpayers neck.

As always, our selectpeople can not think outside the box and look to the future. This is not the best use of taxpayer money.

John Gault Oak Bluffs

Agreed they are not making the best use of TAXPAYER money. They are making a day care center, a movie rental center,and a computer center to surf the internet.

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