Explore history at area libraries

BY DAN AUBreY

Libraries are safe places that connect to the world of ideas and human memory and are always on the front lines of combatting censorship.

Yet they are often the physical representations of past values and designs — if one just takes the time to check them out.

So, let’s take a quick tour of some of the region’s vintage libraries.

First stop, the Trenton Free Public Library on Academy Street in Trenton. It’s the oldest organized library in New Jersey and the embodiment of a particular American movement.

Founded in 1750 as the subscription-styled Trenton Library Company, it allegedly started with 50 books purchased by Benjamin Franklin.

Yet the person who turned that first page in Trenton’s history was Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, who served as the town’s first chief Burgess and contributed 500 pounds. The collection was housed in rented spaces or subscribers’ homes until the British arrived in 1776 and destroyed the building that housed the collection.

The library was back and running by 1781 and by 1797 had 240 items in its collection. By 1804 the library collection was at 700 volumes and still growing without a permanent home.

That need was addressed in 1900, when the organization became the free public library, and Ferdinand W. Roebling served as its first board president.

The library board purchased the property that had housed the street’s namesake, the Trenton Academy, since 1782, and hired architect Spencer Roberts.

Roberts (1873-1958) was a Philadelphia-based architect who had

LAWSuIT continued from Page 1 all activity at the site.

The 37-page complaint seeks relief on a number of counts, including:

• The township failed to provide required notices to neighboring property owners, as required by state law, prior to holding hearings on the rezoning ordinance.

• The property is not appropriate for warehouse and distribution center uses, the rezoning ordinance was improperly adopted without evidence that the property was appropriate for such uses, and there was no zoning or planning justification to adopt the ordinance to permit such development on the property.

• The agreement between the township and the developer is an impermissible and illegal quid pro quo to award favorable zoning requirements at the property in exchange for agreements