Riverhead Free Library is hosting a street festival on Saturday, July 23 to celebrate its 120th anniversary.
Osborn Avenue will be closed for the event, which will take place from 12 noon to 4 p.m.
There will be a DJ, Irish step dancers, bubbles, watermelon, cake and lemonade.
Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.
“Do drop by and say hello. It will be fun for all ages,” said library trustees’ president Kathy Berezny.
For more information, contact the library at 631-727-3228 ext. 100.
The Riverhead Free Library, located at 330 Court Street in Riverhead, was established by the Riverhead Free Library Association, organized April 4, 1896. Riverhead had a library before that, but membership was by subscription only — and it cost $2 per year to belong. (That would be $54.22 in today’s dollars.) The new library was a new concept — it was free, so anyone could borrow a book at no charge.
In its early days, the library moved around, but was settled into its first permanent home in 1924 with the opening of the new high school and library on Roanoke Avenue (now the Roanoke Avenue Elementary School).
The original 9,000-square-foot building on Court Street was constructed in 1963 on land bequeathed to the library by Alice Perkins in 1958. The Perkins family home was razed to make way for the new library building, with only the carriage house left standing. It was restored and became the Yellow Barn, which is used for book sales by the Friends of the Library. The new library was opened in 1964 and expanded with a 10,000-square-foot addition in 1981 and an 11,400-square-foot addition in 2000.
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