By Angela Marshall
More than a thousand Rockville Centre residents are said to have attended the dedication ceremonies for the village's then-new library on Dec. 2, 1962.
After 80 years of moving from one location to another, the cultural, social and intellectual center of Rockville Centre had a home. Next month, the community is invited to the 40th anniversary celebration of the Rockville Centre Public Library's move to 221 North Village Ave. The celebration will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8, and will feature music, refreshments and a trip down memory lane.
An abridged history
Before the community had a high school or was incorporated, Rockville Centre had a library. The first chapter in the library's history began in 1882, when a group of citizens formed an organization to lend books. The Rockville Centre Library and Improvement Association established a reading room on the top floor of the Observer Building, a well-known edifice during the years when Sunrise Highway was called Observer Street in Rockville Centre.
Viola Kreeb, former columnist for the Rockville Centre News and The Owl, once wrote that "Probably no group had a finer or more lasting influence on the village than this first association."
According to articles in the News and The Owl, it was in this first library that the plans for the village's incorporation and the first high school were discussed.
A fire in 1888 destroyed much of the village's east side, including the Observer Building, and the library was moved to the top floor of the DeMott Building on Village Avenue.
At the time, the library depended on book donations from the community to stock its shelves because rent and maintenance of the building took up most of the budget. The association never had more than a couple of hundred books, according to a history of the library published by the News and The Owl in November 1962.
Dr. Frank T. Delano, who had moved to the village from Westport, Conn., brought up the idea of creating a tax-supported library like Westport's. The idea was accepted, and in May 1894 the library association and the South Side High School library were combined to create a school district library. It opened on the second floor of the high school, which is now Village Hall, and contained some 746 books. The new library's first budget was $50 and its first librarian collected a salary of 75 cents a week.
Delano once again played an important role in the library's future when he applied to the Andrew Carnegie Foundation for a $10,000 grant to build a new library. John Lyon, the village's first president, donated a plot of land at the corner of Front Street and Clinton Avenue and, thanks to additional donations from community members, the new 3,000-square-foot building was erected in 1912.
At the time, there were about 4,000 people living in Rockville Centre. Over the next 22 years, the population more than doubled. "In 1934, while school district residents defeated a referendum to restore football at South Side, a $12,000 addition to the library was approved unanimously," wrote William K. Harrison, a former library director.
Time for a new home
The village's population continued to rise and by 1961 had reached more than 25,000. The inadequacies of the library in the face of the growing population were discussed at many public meetings. With no room to add on to the Clinton Avenue building, a search for land was undertaken.
After years of study, the old Patton property on the corner of North Village and Maine avenues was selected. A retired sea captain had once lived there.
A referendum on raising almost half a million dollars was held in March 1961. Flyers saying "Hi Neighbor ... We need a new library" were plastered all over the village. The new building, about 2 1/2 times larger than the old one, was approved by a 6-to-1 margin, 1,825 votes to 301.
Long before the 1962 dedication of the library's current home, it was considered by many citizens be much more than a facility for the lending and borrowing of books. And the respect for the library in the Rockville Centre community has only grown as its programs have expanded and changed with the times. In addition to story times, the library offers craft demonstrations, musical and theatrical performances, book clubs and lectures by internationally known speakers. Beyond books, it offers videos, CD's, DVD's and the use of computers. Patrons can now use a variety of library databases in their own homes to gain access to information.
"Our library has something for everybody," said Mayor Eugene Murray, who attended the building's 1962 opening. "It has been a great service to our community." Murray's father, William J. Murray, as president of the library board, helped secure the land for the project but died before the building was completed.
