Brighter feel these days at Brydges library branch

Oct. 1—If it feels a little brighter inside the Earl W. Brydges Library branch on Main Street these days, it's because it is.

Thanks to a $166,000 New York state library construction grant, library officials were able to replace all of the lighting inside the building with LED, an energy saving alternative to traditional incandescent bulbs. The state funds also covered the cost of replacing 17 broken windows.

While not lighting related, the grant also helped improve the feel of the 22-year-old building in other ways. There's new carpeting in the second-floor hallway and meeting rooms, new electronic locks on all entry doors and bottle filters on the drinking fountains that comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

Grant funds have made a difference outside the building, too.

With help from the city's public works department, all of the bulbs lining the outdoor parking lot were switched to LED as well.

The general brighter feel inside and outside the building feels good to Falls Library Director Sarah Potwin who hopes patrons at the Main Street branch notice a difference, too.

She anticipates more improvements to come, thanks to an infusion of funds from the American Rescue Plan, a federal program that pumped billions of dollars into communities like Niagara Falls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"For a while, it just felt like we were treading water, just trying to get through day after day. Now, it feels a little brighter," Potwin said.

Restoring a landmark

Like everything else in the world, Falls library services were hampered by COVID0-19. Potwin said her dedicated team of library employees did their level best to keep services going through that difficult time period, including delivering books to patrons who were stuck inside the house and eager to read.

Potwin said she's thankful to have emerged from the ordeal in what she thinks is a better position to provide patrons with improved services moving forward.

Tops on the list of anticipated changes: More improvements to the much-maligned Earl W. Brydges building, which has been a source of concern for library directors long before Potwin took the job in 2017.

The first two floors of the building offer space for stacks of books and reading areas, a children's room, computer stations, an auditorium, a public meeting room and administrative space. The third floor is houses local archives and the local history department. The floor fourth is reserved for mechanical equipment.

Architect Paul Rudolph designed the building in the late 1960s to be naturally bright, allowing sunshine to cascade down from above on a three-floor, open plan below.

Construction started in 1970. Two years later, issues with water leaks were discovered in the still-unfinished building, which the city initially refused to accept from the contractor, Albert Elia Co. Amid disputes between the architect and the contractor over who was to blame for the issues, city formally cut the ribbon on the building — with former Mayor E. Dent Lackey doing the honors — in 1974.

In a 2016 article, Bloomberg news reported that the city restored and rededicated the building in 1982 and, two years later, reached settlements that saw Rudolph pay $1.12 million and Elia and its subcontractors pay $1.1 million.

In recent years, the building has dealt with air conditioning concerns and other concerns, with the most glaring being cracks in the floor on the ground level.

Potwin said an infusion of federal funds will help the library finance other upgrades inside the Brydges building, including long-awaited repairs to the first floor's concrete pad.

Mayor Robert Restaino's administration has earmarked more than $5 million in American Rescue funds for Falls library projects, including the first floor repair work. In addition, Potwin said those dollars will allow a new roof to be installed, the parking lot to be resurfaced and an elevator to be refurbished.

"COVID was a terrible thing to have happened. On the upside, I think the city will benefit from this money," Potwin said. "It's nice to have some attention brought to the library department and the services we provide."

Upgrades all around

While there has been some talk over the years about relocating the Main Street library branch to another city building or even building a replacement for the Brydges building, Potwin said, at this stage, her focus remains on making sure the existing it remains as safe and as inviting for patrons as possible.

She said the goal of her department and the Restaino administration remains finding resources outside of the city, preferably in the form of state grants or federal aid, to cover the cost of upgrades while reducing the direct impact on city taxpayers.

"My stance is that it is still a city asset that has to be maintained," she said.

Aside from general building improvements and maintenance, Potwin's staff has been successful in landing grants to expand library services and better protect the library's archives.

In December, library officials officially opened a new "Maker Space" inside the building that provides patrons with access to 3D printers, an Artisul D16 Drawing Tablets and other pieces of technology.

The $133,260 grant from the Federal Communications Commission that funded that project also allowed for the purchase of 200 Chromebooks and 200 Wi-Fi spots, available for loan to NIOGA Library system card holders, at both the Main Street and LaSalle library branches.

The library's local history department, under the direction of local history librarian Courtney Geerhart, remains busy as well.

Grants from the American Library Association, courtesy of the American Rescue Plan, and the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, Walmart, the Friends of Local History and the Orrin E. Dunlap Trust have allowed the department to embark on an ambitious project aimed at preserving and digitizing historic materials, including maps, museum objects, manuscripts, paintings, architectural plans and blueprints. The project will allow photos and information about archived items to made available online for not only local patrons but for researchers across the country and around the world.

Another $5,000 grant from Humanities for New York is supporting the local history department's effort to digitize a collection of videos relating to Niagara Falls history as part of a "Memories of Niagara Falls" exhibit that will showcase videos from the department's collection.

In addition, local history staffers are continuing to digitize copies of the Niagara Gazette. The department has already completed work on Gazette editions from 1854 to 1916 and is now working to digitize editions from 1916 to 1928.

"The local history department has been awarded numerous grants in the last year to work towards preserving and increasing access to the history of Niagara Falls," Potwin said. "Our inventory project has been working to help the local history department preserve and protect Niagara Falls history for current and future generations."

Read all about it

Through all the ups and downs in recent years, Potwin said the mission of the Falls library department remains the same: Promote the simple concept of "just be reading."

"That's our main mission — to spur people reading and to use their literacy skills," she said.

In an increasingly digital world, Potwin says there are still a lot of people who enjoy having an actual book in their hands and the feel of actual pages at their fingertips. She said she wants the Falls library system to continue to meet the needs of traditional patrons as well as those who have become more accustomed to getting information or being entertained online.

"It's a different time now, but we're still here," Potwin said. "We're still here. We're still providing services to our taxpayers."