
History Lesson on Pease Library
May 28,2008
the staff of the Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, During the last Maple Ave library expansion, the library patrons went to the Pease. When the new library opened, the Portrait of George Pease and some other pictures, memorabilia was moved to the main floor of the renovated library; the section was renamed “The George L. Pease Memorial Library” Once that was done, the library board, headed by Nancy Greene, and with Janet Fricke on the board, the council went to court and voided the will, because “the functions of the Pease were being served at the new library building” This was done in 1999.the Library Board (not the Village) and Sidney Stoldt, who argued the case for the Library, were in agreement that the building be closed to the public as no longer necessary. The 911 emergency center rent goes directly to the library board, and not one cent to repairs. The village residents have paid twice: once in library budget, and once separately for all repairs, including the roof. All rent from upstairs tenants, e.g. realtor, lawyer, etc. would go directly to the LIbrary Board, not the public. No member of the public was alerted to the court appearance.
All was readied for commercial rent when, in the Fall of 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit, and the police were moved into the building since it was so high and dry. The police worked closely with the Historic Preservation Commission to make certain that no part of the wood structure was ruined; they kept it as pristine as possible.
This entire lawsuit was done under the radar; in fact, when one resident attended a council meeting in 1999, and the title of a resolution was read, the resident questioned what it meant and was told that she couldn’t ask questions “at that time”.
Nobody cared, and to this day, most residents don’t care, so we have what we deserve.
Yes, I wish we could all chip in to save the building; that was the plan agreed upon by the Council when the historic grants were supposed to be applied for. Most of the matching grants would have been paid for by private funds, it was privately promised; and this was told to the Council. The promise was made that the building would be open to the public. For David Bolger to appear 24 hours before a promise to keep the building open and apply for grants is no mystery. The fix was in from the beginning. Now the council could look as if they really were considering public use, but they weren’t. All the Council members voted to accept the Bolger money.
Is it too late? Its up to the readers of this blog. Others have done more than their share; if more people would stand up, things could be reversed. But if only a dozen people are interested, the building will be stolen.
first published May 28,2008 :
https://theridgewoodblog.net/history-lesson-on-pease-library/
Ken?
As I recall there was also some nonsense about having architect Jeff Wells, whose lawyer brother represents Mr. Bolger’s development interests in town, use the space at Pease for his business rent free if he agreed to make repairs. The same Jeff Wells is also an interested partner in the Village Garage with the Agnellos and others and was pushing for Ridgewood to put a bandstand in the park.
No the real crime was the Ridgewood council changing their mind at the last minute, with (Kim Shagin casting the last vote, after promising to support) to the shock of all supporters of keeping the Pease as a public space.
It was a supposedly ironclad will that it always remain open to the public but quietly they changed the will because there were no heirs to notify.
Nancy Greene had most of the council in her camp, and David Bolger, who was not well at the time, was also lobbied to do this. So Nancy and group took the pictures of George and Gertrude Pease, plus some other memorabilia, put it on the wall on the main floor of the library on Maple and christened it the Pease library, thus saying they have it as open to the public. The little atrium of the former Pease was then called open to the public. sure.
One of the sad events. Then they took the gorgeous promontary in front, carved it out to park cars. If this current council was in charge, never would have happened. It was a total double cross.
Thanks for recounting the sad robbery of a public space in a will that was broken because no heirs, nobody noticed.
You can rest assured if this council was in charge nothing would have happened. Nothing at all.
Fire Janet Fricke immediately.