The Georgetown Neighborhood Library opens Monday, 3 1/2 years after it was nearly destroyed by fire.
Although the glass and steel staircases that welcome visitors to the library are new additions, the $17.6 million worth of repairs and renovations were done in a manner to preserve the history of the 1935 building.
Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper said that after the fire, it was difficult to salvage most of the furnishings and woodwork, but 15 to 20 percent of the interior features were saved with almost all the exterior remaining unchanged.
“It was a concrete, empty shell, missing some of the floors and ceilings,” Cooper said. “We had major work to do.”
Cooper said that work began the day of the fire, when efforts began to save the compilation of the “rare and very valued history” of Georgetown in the Peabody collection. A freeze truck was parked outside to freeze-dry the collection’s documents and papers to prevent molding.
Library spokesman George Williams said the Peabody Collection will have a new, larger home on the third floor, an addition that will have the saved bookcases and tables from the original library. The third floor is climate- and moisture-controlled to protect the more than 30,000 paintings, documents and donated items from Georgetown’s past.
The repairs and renovations also created environmentally friendly fixtures, a larger conference room to hold 100 people, increasing the electrical capacity and doubling the children’s space that provides access to a newly built terrace overlooking Book Park Hill.
Cooper said the library is the last of five to open this year in Washington and is part of a project the D.C. Council provided funding for several years ago to provide “very flexible, very beautiful, very well-stocked libraries in every part of the District.”
