Historical Commission – Phillips Library
Date/Time
Date(s) - 02/21/2018
7:00 pm
Location
City Hall Annex Building
Categories
The Historical Commission’s meeting is a continuation of the February 7 meeting.
Background:
In 1992 the Peabody Essex Museum was founded through a merger of Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute.
In 1857, the Essex Institute rented rooms at Plummer Hall for its library and collections. In 1885, the Essex Institute acquired the Daland House at 132 Essex Street followed by its purchase in 1905 of the adjacent Plummer Hall. The buildings have been updated several times since then, including a massive restoration project, with climate control and modern archival storage (September 1997 to May 1998). In 2011, the Phillips Library collection moved to a temporary collection center in Peabody during preservation and renovation work on Plummer Hall and Daland House, with expected completion in 2013. Six years later the buildings on Essex Street remained closed. Last August, the Peabody Essex Museum announced that the Library and Reading Room were closing and all access to the collection of books and manuscripts would be suspended from September 2017 through March 31, 2018.
On December 6, 2017, at the Historical Commission meeting where the Peabody Essex Museum requested a Certificate of Appropriateness for its plans for outside renovations to Plummer Hall, the public first learned that Peabody Essex Museum was in the process of moving the Phillips Library collections from its temporary facility in Peabody to a new PEM Collections Center in Rowley, 40 minutes away from Salem and not accessible by public transit.
Read minutes from the December 6, 2017, meeting, pages 4-11 (132 Essex Street).
On January 11, the Peabody Essex held an open forum at the museum to discuss its plans. On February 7, the PEM met with the Historical Commission again. The February 21 meeting is a continuation.
Open to the public.