New Canaan Library

New Canaan Library Presents Internationally Bestselling Author Fredrik Backman

By |

New Canaan Library is excited to welcome Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove and Anxious People, who will discuss his writing and introduce The Winners, the long-awaited conclusion to his #1 New York Times bestselling Beartown series. Fredrik Backman will speak on Tuesday, September 27 at 7:00 PM in the auditorium of New Canaan Country School. The evening is a ticketed, fundraising event; the $40 ticket includes a signed, hardcopy of The Winners. Guests are asked to arrive at 6:30 PM for book pick up prior to seating. Elm Street Books will be onsite with additional titles for purchase.

Around Town

Letters Filed Objecting to Library’s Demolition Permit Application

By |

The town’s chief building official last week received four letters of objection to a proposed demolition at New Canaan Library, according to emails obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request. Three of the objection letters lodged with Chief Building Official Brian Platz appear to assume (incorrectly) that the entire 1913 library building will be razed under the demo plan. In fact the demo itself—as reported here—includes a preservation plan for the legacy building as approved in December by the Planning & Zoning Commission. One of the letters, filed by New Canaan Preservation Alliance’s Mimi Findlay, objects to the “partial demolition of the 1913 library.”

“The original, historic 1913 building consists of a dominant gable-roofed front portion and a subordinate rear portion under a lower hip roof,” Findlay wrote in her letter, filed Friday. “The latter has had its back (west) wall altered for the later additions.

Around Town

PHOTOS: ‘New’ New Canaan Library

By |

The widely anticipated new New Canaan Library project is on budget and ahead of schedule, with an expected opening date of the first quarter in 2023, according to Executive Director Lisa Oldham. Here are some photos from a walkthrough that we took with Oldham on June 16. 

Aaron LaTourette

Selectmen Call for Cost Breakdown on Library’s ‘Legacy Building’ Project

By |

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday called for a cost breakdown of the estimated $1.5 million that New Canaan Library officials have said they need now in order to move and secure the original 1913 library within their downtown campus next spring. In a similar presentation to one they’d made to the Board of Finance last month, library officials told the selectmen that fundraising and construction for a new approximately $40 million facility are going very well. It’s on track to open to the public Feb. 1, 2023, according to library Board of Trustees member Ian Hobbs and Executive Director Lisa Oldham. Yet a separate preservation project approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission in December, to relocate the 1,200-square-foot, “legacy” building about 80 feet to the western property line—making space for a planned green—will cost about $2.5 million all-in, Hobbs and Oldham said.

Around Town

Coffee’s on for Thursday

By |

Join fellow residents, business owners and NewCanaanite.com editor Michael Dinan for the monthly Community Coffee, to be held 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, May 5 in the Art Gallery on the main floor of New Canaan Library. (Please use the entrance overlooking Main and Cherry Streets, pictured below.)

The free, public coffee is a group conversation about what’s happening around town, moderated by Dinan. It’s presented in partnership with the library, and this month we will serve Green & Tonic coffee (thank you, everyone at Green & Tonic). Topics come from attendees. Those who would like to receive a friendly reminder email about the coffee—held the first Thursday of each month—should email Dinan at editor@newcanaanite.com.