Monday, April 5, 2010

Groundbreaking at the Dwight Foster Public Library, Fort Atkinson Wisconsin



The original configuration.
Artwork by James S. Baird (1947)

A gathering of local officials, library board members, Friends of the Library, and others join Library Director Connie Meyer on this joyful day.




Library Board President Helen Rose concludes her remarks and acknowledgements.


"A special group", as Connie describes them, stands with shovels ready in front of the area where the new main entrance will be located.





The south facade of the library as it looks now.
Link to rendering of north view of exterior.

Link to rendering of south view of exterior.

Excavation is already taking place at the site of the 12,000-square-foot addition.

Connie offered me a tour of the interior, which I gratefully accepted.










....or thereabouts.



Old use:  storage space.  New use:  community room.



Related articles:
Library now open in temporary quarters. (3/30/2010)
Moving Fort Atkinson Library a pain in many ways.  (3/23/2010)
Dwight Foster Library Lucks Out on Moving Day. (3/20/2010)

2 comments:

J DeB said...

Thanks for the great coverage, Paul-- I hope I can look forward to similar coverage of Fitchburg's groundbreaking next week (since I'll be out-of-state)! Note: the links you list for the north and south renderings need an "html" appended, or they lead to "not founds" on Fort's site. I'll have to swing by their temporary location on one of my college runs to UWW.
--J DeB

Connie Meyer said...

Yes, thank you for this, Paul. It's so exciting to be in the building stage. And based on the number of trucks onsite at the moment, they are not wasting a moment. Throughout the move, I kept telling myself, "I think I can, I think I can," because every cart of books seemed heavier than the one before. Now that we've left the building, it's a pleasure to go to the old library and not have to worry about how in the world we'll provide library service admist the construction. Thanks for documenting this important moment in our history! -Connie