Old Town Hall gets $249,000

By Tom Dalton
Staff writer

June 17, 2009 05:01 am

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SALEM — Yesterday was a great day for Old Town Hall.

In the morning, state officials held a press conference in the 1816 brick building in Derby Square to announce a $174,000 state grant for renovations. Hours later, at a luncheon in Boston, the former municipal building and marketplace got another $75,000 from American Express' Partners in Preservation program.

"It's a big day," said Kristina Stevick, co-director of the Institute for Public History at Gordon College, which signed a five-year lease last summer to operate Old Town Hall.

The combined $249,000 will be used to address a long list of projects that includes buying a furnace, reglazing windows, installing structural supports and refurbishing basement bathrooms.

Work has already begun on some projects, and the bathrooms are scheduled to be done by early July.

The state matching grant was part of $12.4 million in economic stimulus funds being invested in the state's cultural and creative sector, officials said. Symbolically, the Salem grant was announced on the second floor of a building that drew President James Monroe to its opening ceremonies in 1817.

"This is an amazing place," said Anita Walker, executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as she stood under two rows of chandeliers, surrounded by more than 20 tall Palladian windows. "I literally feel like I have stepped back in history."

Gordon College, which puts on "Cry Innocent," a Salem witchcraft trials play, in Old Town Hall, has been commissioned to make greater use of the building. The repairs are essential to handle larger crowds, officials said.

Several speakers joked about Old Town Hall's second-place finish in the recent Partners in Preservation competition run by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In online voting, the Salem building was beaten out for the $100,000 first-place prize by the Paragon Carousel at Nantasket Beach.

However, yesterday, Old Town Hall received a nice consolation prize: $75,000 from the total of $1 million that the preservation program distributed to 12 historic sites in Greater Boston.