The concert was a success at the Carnegie the other night, we probably had about 150 people in attendance (counting the choruses) and we brought in almost one grand. We can move ahead with our renovations on the old building of 107 years. We had an architectural engineer look at the place the next day. We need to know what to do with the coal room that I was hoping would turn into a storage area. His report will cost us almost two grand so we definitely needed the help of the fundraiser concert.
We also talked about an elevator where the dumb waiter for books was placed in the librarian’s office. The engineer made that seem very doable. He showed pictures off of his phone to show that it does NOT need to be an elaborate elevator but something that would suit our purposes. That was good news but still waiting on someone to donate money to our cause.
What fun it was to put up Christmas cards and other Christmas decorations. We have some of the string of lights on a timer so they will go on every night for about 4-5 hours and then automatically out again. We will have another concert the end of December and then hopefully we will have the electrician come in to do some major overhaul on the building’s old system of electricity.
Everything takes time when restoring an old building. I’m glad someone stood in the way of having it demolished back in the mid-1980s. A few claimed that the Carnegie was an eyesore. Some people just do NOT like old buildings and think that new is better. I would have to heartily disagree. I believe the older buildings were built structurally sound and were meant to last a long time!
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