Fire Destroys Tarrytown, NY, Prep School Library and 27,000 Volumes

Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 8/6/2007 7:19:00 AM

Fire destroyed the Kaskel Library at Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY, early Saturday. Lost were 27,000 volumes from the existing two-floor library; 2,000 brand new volumes intended for a new lower school library; and computer and photography labs. But officials at the century-old private prep school, educating grades K-12, vowed to rebuild. 

"There's nothing salvageable," says school librarian Laura Pearle. "I would concur with what our headmaster [Walter Johnson] said: 'It's like you've been kicked in the stomach.'" 

The fire, believed to have been sparked by a lightning strike at about 9:30 p.m. Friday, took firefighters from 21 local departments five hours to extinguish. Intensifying the blaze and its impact was the fact that the lightning apparently short-circuited fire alarms, letting the fire smolder for more than six hours before it was reported.

Motorists on the Tappan Zee Bridge, who could see the fire on the hills overlooking the Hudson River, reported the problem, as did a school groundskeeper, who was cleaning up storm debris at 4 a.m. and smelled the smoke. The families of three faculty members, who lived in a building contiguous to the library building, were safely evacuated.

The library was used by the school's full K-12 population of about 800 students, Pearle says. Stored there were furnishings and 2,000 volumes purchased for the K-12 collection. The library—contained within  Gothic/Tutor Goodhue Memorial Hall, dating back to 1903—had won an architectural award from the American Institute of Architects when it was created in the 1980s.

At this point, says the school librarian, officials are waiting to hear from structural engineers whether they will be able to use the building's original façade and framework as they begin plans to rebuild.