Pelham Library in a Different Light

The following is from the Pelham Library:

When you enter the Library for the first time after its week-long shutdown for interior painting, you will be seeing it in a new light, quite literally.

As the last phase of a renovation program that has also included a new slate roof, the interior lighting in the main room of the Library is changing, to improve overall ambiance, be more reader-friendly, and be much easier to maintain.

Visitors who walk into the Library before it shuts down on May 6 may wonder what, exactly, is changing. The space currently contains both new and old light fixtures: the recently-installed, unobtrusive wall sconces that project light upward, and a set of six huge, inverted pendant chandeliers that hang from the Library’s distinctive barrel ceiling and were installed when the Library first opened in 1995.

According to Paul Osmolskis, a Pelham architect and a member of the Library’s board of trustees, they provided less-than-optimum light and weren’t right for the space. “The scale and style of the chandeliers were in conflict with the simple elegance of the barrel-vaulted ceiling,” he explained.

NOT JUST FOR LOOKS

However, the decision to pursue new lighting wasn’t just about aesthetics. The chandeliers were so high off the floor that scaffolding had to be erected just to change the bulbs. As a result, explained Pelham Library director Patricia Perito, the lights were changed infrequently -- only twice in nine years. Furthermore, the light they emitted wasn’t right for reading. They used a combination of mercury vapor, which gives off a very white light, and sodium lighting, similar to the exterior lamppost lighting in Pelham Manor, Osmolskis said. The result? The main room was suffused in anunnatural orange tone.

Perito added: “They made any photographs taken in the Library look awful.”

The new lights use metal halide bulbs, which are more energy-efficient, and the new placement of the fixtures requires only a ladder to change a bulb. What a concept.

Still, it took a long time to, as they say,  see the light. The challenges and costs of potentially replacing the existing lighting originally caused the Library to pursue the most obvious solution: upgrading the existing light fixtures. But after pricing the project, those involved in the decision-making process came to a different conclusion.

“It was throwing good money after bad,” Osmolskis explained.

IT’S IN THE PAINT

Thus, replacing the existing fixtures became the best option. Using funds from a variety of sources — including a Public Library Construction Grant, from a program administered by the New York State Education Department — along with money from the Library’s own reserves, the approximately $26,000 project was paid for with only $5,000 coming directly from the Town of Pelham.

Even though the new fixtures are actually installed and working, their effect won’t be completely apparent until the old fixtures are gone and the new paint in the main room goes on next week. Yes, the paint job will finally cover the marks left by water damage from leaks caused by the building’s old roof, but again, it’s not just about aesthetics. The paint was carefully chosen for its reflective properties, so that the Library would be an easier place to read. It wasn’t just a matter of picking a brighter light; its type and brightness follows established guidelines for library lighting.

“We did computer analysis of lighting levels before picking the paint,” Osmolskis said.

So when you stop by the Library after it reopens on May 13,  remember there’s more to a paint job than meets the eye.