Residents will decide at a court-ordered meeting whether Purchase”™s small library stays as a tenant of the community house on Purchase Street or if safety concerns warrant an eviction.
The Purchase Free Library is the smallest library in Westchester County, employing one person full time and occupying an estimated 700 square feet at the Purchase Community House, which also hosts preschool and after-school programs as well as a day camp.
Purchase Community Inc., the nonprofit that operates the community house, decided not to renew the library’s lease due to what it called safety concerns and issued an eviction notice in September. Library officials refused to leave, sued the nonprofit and had the backing of the state Supreme Court, which ordered the nonprofit to hold a vote of its full membership on the matter.
- The entrance to the Purchase Free Library at the Purchase Community House.
Rosanna Spadini, a resident and member of the library board of trustees, said the safety concerns were exaggerated after three incidents in 2013 in which police were called due to suspicious visitors. The nonprofit said they couldn”™t forcibly remove people due to the library being a public space.
“I haven”™t heard anyone say, ”˜I”™m so happy the library is closing; it”™s not safe,”™” Spadini said. In each of the incidents, she said, the visitors turned out to have benign intentions ”“ a bicyclist waiting for a riding companion to catch up, a man in a truck looking for Old Oaks Country Club where he had a job interview and a Greenwich woman who was waiting for the library to open.
Spadini said it was a mischaracterization to say that a person posing a safety threat couldn”™t be removed from the premises. She noted that the Purchase library”™s own policies state patrons could be asked to leave for a multitude of reasons, including body odor.
After safety became a focus for the nonprofit”™s board of directors, the community house hired Strategic Concepts Inc. as a security adviser. The library hired its own consultant, Comprehensive Solutions LLC. Larry Eidelman, a Yorktown police officer with experience working with children and schools, was quoted in court documents filed by the library”™s attorney as saying the library “presents no significant safety of security risk to patrons, staff or the surrounding community.”
The stance of the nonprofit has been that the library shouldn”™t be treated differently than a tenant in a privately owned building. The library has signed one-year leases since the 1920s shortly after the property was donated by the family of William A. Read, which said the property must always be used as a community house. Although the library isn”™t mentioned by name in the agreement, the Read family was involved in its operation and the library was operated by a subcommittee of the community house until the 1960s.
Justine Gaeta, president of the nonprofit”™s board of directors, sent a letter to members saying that the community house was “under attack from a small group of supporters of the Purchase Free Library.” She said the decision not to renew the lease did not mean the nonprofit was putting the library out of business.
“We don”™t have that authority,” she said. “It is a fact that there is a beautiful location 1.7 miles down Purchase Street that would welcome the library with open arms.”
There are scant options in the Purchase area of the town of Harrison, which is mostly residential with large homes, country clubs and little commercial space of the size that would accommodate the library.
The location referred to by the nonprofit is the Quaker Friends House. Spadini said the space there would be 40 percent smaller than the current Purchase library. “It”™s just not possible, unfortunately,” she said.
The parties are due in court next month and it is likely a date for the meeting and vote will be scheduled then. It is expected the vote will be set for March.
The Purchase library operates independently from the Harrison Library, which has branches in downtown Harrison and West Harrison.
What a sad day and a tremendous embarrassment to the people of Purchase to be known for attacking and evicting a public library. I sincerely hope citizens band together to stop the board of the community house from what sounds like it is not a legal right from the original owners intentions nor an ethical or moral one.
Furthermore, what kind of values could a community house have that doesn’t include supporting the library?
A “community house” that hurts Purchase and West Harrison communities by forcing out a beloved cute little library:
What kind of community house would evict a tiny public library that plays an important role in the Purchase and West Harrison communities?
The accusation that the library poses security concerns it outright ludicrous – and everyone knows it.
The community house is evidently looking for a reason to expel the library from its premises. Why? Would be interesting to know.
William A. Read would be appalled.
The public library is an important resort for the children of Purchase.
In a time when bookstores are closing down left and right, it is an abomination hat a valuable public source like the Purchase Library will be closed down.