A Very Moving Library Story

The Westport Library had humble beginnings.

Founded in 1886 — 140 years ago — as the “Westport Reading Room and Library Association,” it occupied one rented 2nd-floor room in the Hurlbutt block on State Street (now the Post Road), on the block now anchored by South Moon Under.

In 1908 — thanks to Morris Ketchum Jesup, who donated both the land and $5,000 for construction — the Morris K. Jesup Memorial Library moved across the street. Sadly, he died 4 months before its dedication.

Morris Jesup’s original library.

The renamed Westport Public Library grew rapidly during Westport’s postwar boom, expanding next door (into what is now Starbucks). It had, among other features, a robust art collection (used frequently by the town’s many illustrators), and an active children’s section on the second floor.

Expanded Westport Library, early 1960s. Today, it’s Starbucks.

By 1986, the library had outgrown its home of nearly 80 years. After an extensive search, trustees found a site for a new building.

It was a dump — literally. Built on landfill on the banks of the Saugatuck River, the former town dump had once hosted a “tea party” by etiquette expert Amy Vanderbilt. (The reasons are lost to history.)

Longtime residents remember flocks of gulls circling the piles of garbage next to the Taylor parking lot by Jesup Green. They remember too a Little League field nearby, within home run (and smelling) distance.

The town dump was just south of Rogers Little League field (off to the right of this photo). From lower left: the old Westport Library; the block across the Post Road (burned to the ground in the 1970s); Taylor parking lot; above it, Jesup Green. (Photo/Phil Lentini)

The choice was controversial. Extensive engineering tests took place. It took a town-wide referendum for the location to be approved.

Finally, on September 3, 1986 — exactly 40 years ago today — the new, modern Westport Public Library opened for tours.

I was a couple of weeks into my gig as “Woog’s World” columnist for the Westport News. I wrote the first week about 23-year-old Staples graduate Dan Kennedy, who was Sgt. Slaughter’s driver. (The Weston resident was an early WWF star. Those were the days …)

This time, I turned my attention to the library. Specifically, it was how the staff moved more than 154,000 books, a few thousand magazines and pamphlets, several hundred films, scores of microfilm rolls, some computer terminals, the contents of a couple dozen desks — and more — across the Post Road, through the Taylor parking lot, and into the completely new building.

Moving a library is not like moving your home, or even your business. The average mover, I wrote, “isn’t exactly on speaking terms with the Dewey Decimal System.” (Kids: Ask your grandparents!)

Another view of the Post Road library. (Photo/Lynn Untermeyer Miller)

So Joan Turner “did what any good library director would do: She called American Library Consultants of Melville, New York.” They were the only company in the US fully dedicated to moving libraries.

They moved all kinds of libraries: public, university, hospital, museum and private. They moved the 100,000-volume General Motors library too.

Many of their movers had librarian’s master degrees. I watched the process. “Several strong, young, unbookish-looking men and women moved methodically along the shelves of the old building, tagging volumes, hauling cartons and tossing boxes all around,” I reported.

The Westport move was straightforward. ALC charged $21,000. That sum would have been “considerably less had been a simple shelf-by-shelf (‘reintegrating’) move. With new shelving, this was tougher.”

But the cost included vacuuming the entire collection. That had not been done for years — if ever.

“There was little wasted motion,” I wrote. “Workers passed books from the balcony level down to the main floor, were colleagues boxed them, labeled them and moved them out the door.

“A couple of trucks clogged Parker Harding Plaza — no rarity — waiting for fresh loads before shuttling over to the new building.

“There, as Bach and the Beatles battled on competing tape decks” — Kids: Ask your parents! — “another crew worked just as industriously to shelve the incoming books.”

A few days later — 40 years ago today — the library officially opened. Hundreds of residents listened to speeches and music, nibbled refreshments, and “wandered through the recently integrated stacks.”

Westport Library in 2010, before the Transformation Project.

The movers were not there to enjoy it. They’d already moved on, to their next job.

That was not the last ceremony for the new library. There was a renovation 12 years later. Then in 2019, the Westport Library completed its ambitious “Transformation Project.”

The flexible community Trefz Forum opened up the main floor, near the innovative Verso Studios. A new children’s library graced the second floor. The 100,000-plus book collection moved into a new space, downstairs.

That move was less dramatic. I did not report on it specifically, in my post-Westport News career as a blogger.

But I do look forward to celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Westport Library’s Transformation Project, in 2059.

(“06880” regularly covers the Westport Library — and just about everything else here. If you enjoy stories about our town’s past, present and future, please click here to support our work. Thanks!)

Westport Library today.