Freedom From Mildew

By NICK TAYLOR

THE Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum at Hyde Park, NY, the nation’s first presidential library, is literally falling apart. The roof leaks, the basement floods, asbestos is flaking from old steam pipes, an ancient electrical system could send the whole place up in smoke. This sorry situation is an insult to the person the library and museum honor: the founder of the New Deal, the greatest investment in our nation’s modern development.
Roosevelt inaugurated the tradition of national presidential libraries when he donated his personal and presidential papers to the government, as well as land from his estate along the Hudson River. Friends of the president formed a nonprofit corporation to raise money to build the library, which was designed by Roosevelt himself with a facade to incorporate the native Hudson Valley fieldstone that he loved. Construction started in 1939 and finished in 1941. Much of it has not been

SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/opinion/28taylor.html


SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/opinion/28taylor.htmlupdated since. (Yes, the visitors’ center, which opened in 2003, is new, but that’s not where the archives and the historical collection are stored.)
The National Archives and Records Administration runs the library and museum. It is a modest place compared with more recent presidential libraries, but the importance of the New Deal and World War II to researchers of 20th-century American history guarantees that the library’s archives are among the most used of the 12 presidential libraries. And with 110,000 visitors last year, it was among the most popular presidential museums.
While the library sits high above the river, its basement lies below the water table. Sump pumps installed in 1939 are supposed to keep it dry, but don’t. Storms have caused flooding in the basement where collections are stored and in restrooms and public areas. What’s worse, storm and sewer drainage run together, which means they mingle if there’s a backup in the basement.
The electrical system, which was also installed in 1939, has outlived the suppliers of replacement parts. Archivists turn the lights on and off using the original circuit breakers. And with the electrical vault in the flood-prone basement, the library’s director, Cynthia Koch, fears that a short in the system could set the place on fire and destroy the entire collection.
Parts of the steam heating system are also original, including the asbestos that was used to insulate the steam pipes. The asbestos is cracking and peeling, a danger to workers in the mechanical rooms and, less directly, to the public, including the 15,000 elementary and high school students who visit the library each year.
The heating system is so out of date that it can’t be calibrated or repaired. The staff members stuff towels against doorjambs to keep water out. An old transformer contains PCB, a dangerous toxic material. Household dehumidifiers are deployed among the archive stacks and museum exhibits in a losing battle to control damaging humidity. Security and fire systems are outdated. These conditions grossly violate the National Archives’ own standards for preserving its most valuable collections, and probably most local building codes.
The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation has raised donations for new exhibition galleries to replace the current ones, but they can’t be installed until the building gets new electrical and heating and cooling systems. A modest sprucing up of the research room covered new lighting and reading desks, but no data ports or electric outlets for researchers were installed because the electrical system can’t handle them.
The House Financial Services Subcommittee has approved funds for repairs and new equipment at the library, covering the first year of a three-year program. The House Appropriations Committee is the next step, and, of course, the Senate must agree.
We can and should be better stewards of our history. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies literally rebuilt the United States and brought it from the 19th century into the 20th. It would be sad if the original materials documenting this historic legacy, which brought us roads, bridges, dams and even libraries and museums, could not live on for centuries more.
Nick Taylor is the author, most recently, of “American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the W.P.A.”

SOURCE
New York Times, July 27, 2008