Celebration To Reopen Library

The time has finally arrived. After more than four years of work and many more of yearning and planning, the renovated and expanded John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor will open its doors in a little more than a week.

The reopening of the 1910 Classical Revival building, and the opening of its new 7,000-square-foot addition, will be celebrated on July 23 beginning at 10:30 a.m. when Catherine Creedon, the executive director, locks the door on the space the library temporarily used on West Water Street, which closed on Monday when the staff moved the books and equipment, and starts what is being called a “book brigade.”

The book brigade will start as Ms. Creedon hands a copy of Dorothy

Zaykowski’s book “Sag Harbor: The Story of an American Beauty” to a waiting staff member. The book will then be passed to community members representing schools and businesses, one by one, in a line up Main Street all the way to its home in the library. Ms. Creedon will wait for the book there and expects it will take about a half-hour for it to make it back into her hands. She will then unlock the doors.

“We recognize how many hands helped us with this project,” Ms. Creedon told the Sag Harbor Village Board after receiving approval for the book brigade at Tuesday night’s meeting.

 Six staff members who are Pierson graduates, ranging in age from 22 to 76, will  have the honor of cutting a ribbon, along with fellow Pierson alumni Sag Harbor Village Mayor Sandra Schroeder and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. The community band will play and local vendors will provide refreshments, including popcorn from an old-fashioned popcorn trolley.

After the celebration, which is expected to last about an hour, library-card holders can get down to business —- provided the library receives its certificate of occupancy from the Sag Harbor Building Department in time.

“I cannot express my joy to be going back home,” Ms. Creedon said.