Building to get two new front windows.
By: Cynthia Koons
ALLENTOWN The Allentown Library is returning to its roots, one window at a time.
As part of a restoration and structural rebuilding project for its building, formerly a Baptist church, a $5,000 grant will finance two large front windows to replace the four that line the face of the building.
"(We’re installing) cathedral-type windows, arched on the top, and one large window," said Josephine Mayer, library board member.
"We’re doing the restoration of the building with historical accuracy," she said. "We’re trying to get the building more in line with how it used to look," she said.
In order to do that, the library board has secured a $134,000 grant from the historic trust and $5,000 from the Monmouth County Historical Commission a grant which was awarded this month.
The Allentown Library has inhabited the building since 1972, after a fire damaged the facility and neither the church nor the borough opted to purchase the structure, head librarian Nancy Stein said.
The library board bought the building and repaired it in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, the facility opened where the main congregation once met. The building itself has been standing since 1879.
"(The windows are) going to be made into how they were originally," she said. "That’s a big, big priority, to keep it to its historical originality."

