Irvington Town Hall - History

History

The property where Town Hall now stands was first developed in 1869, when a local organization called the Mental and Moral Improvement Society built what it called the Atheneum, which housed a circulating library. During the last decades of the 19th century, the village grew rapidly, and by the 1890s needed a central place to house its various governmental functions. In 1892 the society conveyed the Atheneum property to the village with the condition that it maintain, in perpetuity, a library and reading room in the building and construct the building within five years.

After the village had not been able to find a suitable architect by 1897, the society agreed to a five-year extension. Manning, a former office manager to New York City architect Robert Robertson, finally produced a design the village liked, and it was completed and opened in 1902, at the end of the extension. Financial assistance came from some of the village's wealthier residents. Frederick W. Guiteau, a member of the society, endowed the library with $10,000 which he had apparently originally intended to bequeath to it in his will. Helen Gould, who had grown up in the nearby Lyndhurst estate as the daughter of Jay Gould, contributed the cost of the interior finishings and made Tiffany's work possible. The Arts and Crafts furniture she bought is still in use.

The new town hall became the center of Irvington's public life the village had envisioned. The theatre in particular was used for public events such as school graduation ceremonies, police and fire balls, plays and other cultural events. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at a Democratic rally just before her husband was elected President in 1932. Opera singer Lillian Nordica performed there, and Ted Mack auditioned talent for his Original Amateur Hour there as well.

In the mid-20th century, the library needed space and took over the stair area leading up to the theater. A tower was added to the rear exterior to compensate. After the state fire code was revised in the 1960s, however, the theatre no longer met those standards and could not be used as a public space. The library used it as storage space afterwards, with a few occasional public exhibitions, as it continued to deteriorate. In 1978, the Irvington Town Hall Theatre Group raised $100,000, mostly from the village, for the necessary improvements and restoration of earlier period details such as light fixtures. It reopened in late 1981 and has been in use ever since.

By the 1990s the library was again in need of space, and had to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act requiring greater physical accessibility. It moved into another local historic structure, the Lord and Burnham Building on South Astor Street, but a reading room, the so-called "Tiffany Room", remains in the Town Hall, to fulfill the requirements of the original deed.