Historic Paterson library will undergo $1.5M renovation

PATERSON — The city’s Danforth Memorial Library, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is undergoing a $1.5 million renovation.

Roof repairs began in mid-November, and officials said work on the interior of the neoclassical building will take place next year, possibly affecting public access to the library. Officials expect the renovation to take about nine months.

“The building is more than 100 years old, and there has been very little work done to it,” said Gianfranco Archimede, the city’s director of historic preservation and the project coordinator for the rehabilitation. “It really needs it.”

In addition to roof and cornice repairs, the contractors will reinforce the plaster ceilings, where water damage has made them unstable. Other upgrades include painting, installing new light fixtures, and modifying the elevators and children’s room bathroom for ADA compliance.

“When certain rooms are being worked on, we will have to close temporarily,” said Corey Fleming, the library’s director. “We want to minimize the effect on public service.”

Fleming said construction updates, including closing information, will be posted on the library’s website and social media pages. The Danforth building on Broadway is Paterson’s main library, and the city has three smaller neighborhood branches.

Built in 1905, the two-story limestone building was designed by Lincoln Memorial architect Henry Bacon. A notable feature of the facade is the inscription of 33 names belonging to artists, writers and philosophers from antiquity to the Victorian era, including Chaucer, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

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“I would consider it a monument,” Fleming said. “These construction dollars will enable us to continue to preserve and update so the building can last a long time.”

The repairs are based on recommendations made by architecture firm Clarke Caton Hintz, which completed a preservation plan in 2018. According to that plan, the last major renovation was in 1967.

USA Architects, working with Frankoski Construction, will oversee the project, which must follow certain protocols given that the building is a state-designated landmark. Half the funding is provided through the state Library Construction Bond Act, and that amount is matched by the city of Paterson.

In addition to more than 100,000 books, the Danforth Memorial Library houses a considerable collection of 19th-century American and European paintings that were a gift of Gilded Age philanthropist Jenny Tuttle Hobart. She was the wife of former United States Vice President Garret Hobart, who died in office in 1899.

The library gets its name from Charles Danforth, a railroad tycoon and former president of the Paterson City Council, who was the father of philanthropist Mary Danforth Ryle.

In 1888, Ryle donated her late father’s mansion to the city to replace Paterson’s first library — also the state’s first library — with the condition that the building, and any subsequent one, would bear her father’s name. Fourteen years later, that library was consumed in the Great Fire of 1902.

At the time the city was considering rebuilding the Danforth library, Andrew Carnegie’s foundation was funding the construction of hundreds of libraries across the nation. Someone suggested that Paterson ask Carnegie for a donation, but that enraged Ryle.

“When Mrs. Ryle heard of the plan, she was incensed and said that Paterson should not be a beggar, and in a free gift made to the trustees, made on Feb. 8, she gave $100,000 in cash toward constructing a new library,” the Paterson Daily Press reported.

Though the facade bears Danforth’s name, historians consider the library a monument to Ryle, who contributed a total of $250,000 in library gifts while also donating liberally to other local charities.

As a member of Paterson’s upper class, Ryle was among the Gilded Age industrialists who gave large endowments to libraries and churches. But their factory workers — many of them immigrants — felt exploited.

In Paterson, the friction between classes built up until silk workers went on strike in 1913, an event seen as the beginning of the local labor movement.

Darren Tobia is a contributing writer for Paterson Press.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ Danforth Library will be renovated for $1.5M