New library underway at long last
Groundbreaking marks win in 20-year struggle
At times it seemed futile, and often contentious, but after 20-plus years of trying, failing, and trying again, a town that never gave up hope for a new library broke ground on one last week at the corner of School and Stone streets.
The library will be Walpole’s first new public building in 40 years — and it was a dream in the making, said those who were there.
Driving rain couldn’t dampen the joy as residents and officials waited under a billowy white tent for a turn to toss some dirt on the site of the $11.2 million, 32,000-square-foot facility boosted by $4 million from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, and more than $1 million in private donations.
The new building, which will be energy efficient and environmentally friendly, is expected to be completed in 2012.
Residents, supporters, and town and state officials gathered inside the Walpole Senior Center, next to the library site, as rain poured. Later, after many laughs and smiles, about 100 people moved out into the storm to wait for a turn with the shovel.
Although he has recently retired after several decades as Walpole’s library director, Jerry Romelczyk wanted to be among the first in line to share in history. He threatened good-naturedly to maintain his grasp on the ceremonial shovel when the big moment had passed, and, instead, keep digging.
“I’ve been waiting 22 years,’’ he said. “There is no clouds or rain here today, just sunshine.’’
New library director Sal Genovese took over for Romelczyk this summer.
Others recognized the travails the friends of the library, and its trustees and others, endured on the path to a new building. Like a vitriolic, failed tax-limit override vote in 2008, and another in 2009, where the plan to fund $6.2 million of the cost passed by 10 votes. A recount days later dropped that margin to 8 votes.
US Representative Stephen Lynch congratulated residents on both sides, those who wanted to spend the money and those who didn’t.
He told about his youth in the hardscrabble housing projects of South Boston and the library there where he found respite from a tough life, and developed a focus on the future. For him, life’s saving grace materialized in the words of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and H.G. Wells. And in Jack London and Jules Verne, Lynch said.
“They created a passion in me that cannot compete with
For Walpole, the groundbreaking was long in the making, he said. “I look forward to coming back in 16 months to cut the ribbon. And I make a prediction that in five years nobody will take credit for voting against this.’’
Permanent Building Committee chairman Bernie Goba said the town’s good fortune is “an alignment of the stars,’’ in getting approval for spending, a significant state grant, and the support of volunteers who know what a library means in a community.
Walpole has come a long way from the days in 1826 when people belonged to the Walpole Social Library, from which they could purchase shares entitling them to two books each. Or from 1876, when a free lending library was sited in the back of the F.O. Pillsbury Pharmacy on Main Street. Or from 1903, when the current Common Street library opened with a $15,000 grant from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, a land donation by one of Walpole’s first families, the Birds, and a little town cash.
State Library Commissioner George Comeau said the new building will allow for the transformation of minds and lives: “Today we watch your dream take form. It will make all our lives richer and fuller.’’
Libraries, said master of ceremonies Paul Cesary, who chairs the library’s board of trustees, bring people out of the darkness and into the light, opening a portal into knowledge “that can change the path of your life.’’
Longtime town resident Barbara Hill, who spent hundreds of hours at the library over the years with her four children, said she and daughter-in-law Heidi Hill are eager for the new building to open.
“We have gone through so much to get here,’’ Heidi Hill said.
Ed Damish, who with his wife, Joanne, raised six children in Walpole, said he was on “pins and needles’’ with excitement. As were Old Post Elementary students Kristen Savastano and Tara Gordon, both 10, and members of Walpole’s Girl Scout Troop 74692.
Tara summed up what many seemed to be feeling as the ground was broken: “I’ll miss the old library, but I’m really excited for the new one.’’
Library director Genovese said a use has yet to be determined for the old building, which he says has served the community well despite its small size and a leaky roof.
“We’re excited about going into the new one and being able to do things the current space doesn’t allow,’’ he said.
Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net. 
