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Date: 2/23/2022
CHESTER — Outside of the Hamilton Library, the Sitterly Movers truck was parked and bookcases lined up after the library recently underwent mold remediation and renovation. Overseeing much of the work have been the library trustees, including President Karen Savoy, Lucia Browne, Linda Coske and Treasurer Mary Ann Pease.
“The library is mold-free,” Savoy said on Feb. 15, as the movers brought the books inside the building and back onto the shelves.
Sitterly Movers specializes in moving libraries and books, providing the bookcases for the move and keeping them in alphabetical order by cart so they can put the books on the shelves in generally the same order as they had been taken out.
Not only were the books removed, but all of the bookshelves in the library were removed and stored by Bert Hill Movers of Westfield; the carpet was removed and discarded, and the wooden floors underneath sanded and finished, leaving the room completely empty for mold remediation. Aaren’s Home Improvement of Huntington repaired and repainted the ceiling and walls and removed the carpet. A. Dion & Son Flooring in Hadley refinished the wood floors.
Savoy said they were lucky, because only a few pieces of flooring here and there needed to be replaced. She called it “quality work.” All told, the restoration cost $20,000, all of which came from the library’s own account, including a generous gift of $10,000 last spring which paid for half of the work.
Savoy said there will be one more remediation, which will be the third, after all the books are back on the shelves.
The Hilltown Community Development Corp. paid for the remediation and purchased the air purifiers from Nature’s Way in Springfield, the same company that tests after remediation. The CDC had bought the 100-year-old former high school at 195 Route 20 during the pandemic to preserve the 15 affordable housing units in the building, and the library has a 99-year lease for the first floor for $1.
“They have been supportive,” Savoy said about the Hilltown CDC. The source of the mold was a closet in the library that contains electrical panels and exterior brick walls. There is wall damage to the bricks in the closet, but they can’t be touched because they are original to the building, and the Hilltown CDC is seeking grant funding for its exterior restoration.
“We’re hopeful that we’re going to be OK with the air purifiers,” Savoy said. She said the air purifiers, which they expected to be delivered last week, will have to run all the time.
Savoy said the work has been time-consuming for all of the trustees. She said Mary Ann Pease, the fourth trustee, has been doing the contracting for the heavy labor and handling the billing. She has also been distributing donated books to nursing homes and daycare centers.
Savoy said the trustees’ plea to the public now is for volunteers to serve as Friends of the Library and help with fundraising efforts and events. Friends of the Library members must be Chester residents.
The town also recently purchased the nearly 100-year-old elementary school building across the street from the library, and town officials have said they would love to relocate the library as part of their vision for that building.
Savoy said the trustees happy that the town now has ownership of the elementary school building, but there is a lot of work to be done in it, including making it handicap accessible. She said the library will remain where it is for the foreseeable future.
Savoy said as someone who went to two years of high school in the building before Chester merged into Gateway Regional High School around 1968, this was her library as a youth.
“I have fond memories of the whole building,” she said.
“We’re very happy with the way the library turned out, and we think the public will be, too. It took this logjam to cause us to spruce it up,” Savoy said, adding, “We’re hoping to have a librarian and reopen within a month.” She said they have received several applications for the position.