Public Comment: Proposed Demolition/Expansion Mutilates Historic Jones Library
The architects have yet to specify which original millwork in the Jones Library is to be retained in the renovation and expansion. Recent plans were to remove and discard about 25% of the original millwork. Photo: amherstma.gov
The following public comment was submitted in writing to the Jones Library Section 106 review on September 26, 2024.
I left Needham MA to attend Mount Holyoke 70 years ago and have lived here ever since except for 3 years on the Upper West Side to earn a PhD in neuroscience. So I’m well-acquainted with Amherst in the “olden days” when UMass had only 3700 students, Amherst College was all male, its frats great for partying, and the downtown was a tourist Mecca for its bookstores, fine restaurants, quaint shops….
For the last 65 years I have been a principal of Historical Enterprises along with my husband and now my son, Joel and his wife, Lisa. We were collectors of Connecticut Valley art and decor as well as rescuing and restoring many Old Houses, increasing their tax valuation and improving neighborhoods. My husband was a Jones trustee and twice a member of the Historical Commission, as such one of the authors of Lost Amherst, published by the earlier Commission.
I support wholeheartedly the repair and restoration of Jones Library according to federal and state preservation standards. The trustees and director have let the building deteriorate to a deplorable condition inside and out over the past ten years by not keeping up with annual routine maintenance. I agree with all the comments made by members of The Amherst Historical Preservation Coalition and will not repeat them.
That said, despite FAA architects’ contention that they are sensitive to historic preservation, this design is aesthetically bad, downright ugly. Yes, there are uglier buildings downtown but they do not abut nor detract from two architectural jewels. This is the wrong project for this location.
FAA are the wrong architects! One only has to look at the North Amherst Library to see how a modern addition to a historic building can be an aesthetic and an environmental improvement to the neighborhood and its users. If we ditch the MBLC funds, I know restoration funds will pour in. Once a historic building is mutilated or torn down it is gone forever and cannot be re-created! Leave Mother Amherst’s living room for new generations to enjoy its beauty and comfort.
I agree with this opinion of what they propose to do to the Jones Library. I grew up in Amherst and remember her views about it and a plethora more. If you’re going to change the historical value of the library to the point of being unrecognizable then you might as well tear it down! Why not, the town has allowed so much of it to be altered to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.