Children crowded the aisles and played on computers at the new Mont Pleasant Branch Library, which held its grand opening Saturday morning on Crane Street and 6th Avenue — an intersection that previously had been the site of hundreds of police calls.
Outside the building, a group of Hamilton Elementary School students posed for a photo on the same spot that the infamous Chubby’ Pizza once stood, when it was an epicenter of crime in the neighborhood and the site of over 500 police calls in 2016 before being demolished to make way for the new state-of-the-art library.
“This was a corner of great despair three years ago,” Gary Hughes, majority leader for the Schenectady County Legislature, said. “And today, it is a sign of tremendous hope. What we have accomplished here, and what we celebrate today, is the transformation of despair into hope.”
The total cost for the library checked in at $2.6 million, with $1.6 million of that coming from the Schenectady County Legislature. The additional $1 million was raised by the Board of Trustees for the Schenectady County Public Library.
Private donors included Neil and Jane Golub, the Carlilian foundation, the Wright Family Foundation, The Little Foundation, Friends of the Library, The Schenectady Foundation and others.
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