Written by Matthew Guerry
The opening of Library Park at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall is being pushed back so that a “potentially hazardous” outcrop of rock on the library’s hillside might be removed. Library Executive Director Maggie Forbes said the removal and accompanying landscaping will add $167,000 to the cost of the $1.5 million park project, which is now aimed for completion in 2019.
“But you have to make it safe and stable before you make it pretty,” Forbes said.
The outcrop was identified in two separate geotechnical surveys conducted on library grounds following a February mudslide that carried 12 truckloads of mud and rubble downhill and onto Williams Way, Forbes said. Contractors will begin removing the rock this month, she said, and afterward will regrade, reseed and replant trees on the hillside.
Forbes said the Borough of Carnegie will install a jersey barrier and retaining fence along the perimeter of Williams Way at its own cost. The Richard King Mellon Foundation has given the library permission to use a portion of its $500,000 grant to cover the cost of the remedial effort, she said.
Additional funds will now need to be raised for the project, which Forbes said she feels confident can be done. No further debris flows have been observed on library grounds since February despite a rainy spring and summer, she said.
No specific date has yet been given for the park’s opening, but Forbes said the library will still unveil this month a recently completed mosaic that more than 200 people helped assemble in a series of public workshops. Forbes said the 117-foot mural, which will be installed and displayed in the park, was coincidentally completed in the library’s 117th year of operation.
Matthew Guerry is a Tribune-Review contributor.