GuelphToday received the following letter to the editor from reader Elizabeth Snell in response to the story Hey history nerds: Get your s#!* together!
I agree with Adam Donaldson about the importance of preserving Guelph’s heritage stone buildings.
But the old Carnegie library, though impressive looking, was not stone. It was built with a type of low-quality cement made to look like stone.
The Guelph Historical Society’s publication, Guelph: Perspectives on a Century of Change 1900-2000, cites the “shoddy construction” that was disintegrating beyond saving.
Saving heritage buildings contributes beauty, history and a sense of place while their embedded carbon helps climate health.
But those contributions are possible only if the building was well-constructed or at least restorable.
Unfortunately, Guelph’s Carnegie library was neither.
Elizabeth Snell
