CONSTRUCTION AT FINDLAY
Next door to the rising Rose pavilion, basic
renovation work to repair the Findlay building was
under way: drainage, basement excavation, electrical
re-wiring, a new roof, thermal windows, seismic
reinforcement and addition of a special climate
control system to preserve the $4 million book
collection.
By the start of the new year in 1995, counters,
walls, mechanical components and other unwanted
items were removed to>begin the restoration work.
As well, the basement was dug out under the south
reading room to provide two more feet in ceiling
height so the cellar room could be used as a
cataloguing room. "Excavation allowed us to
increase the total usable area of the project to
29,600 square feet," Mayor Trent explains. "But it
was too costly and risky to dig out under the new
staff room. "We would be below the footings of the
building."
Perimeter drainage was installed, new wall
openings made and underpinning of various
foundation walls carried out. Work on floor drains
and sanitary drainage also took place. Mechanical
ductwork and a subfloor were installed and the
water entrance re-routed.
Then came the date Frank Frenza will never
forget.
"It was Friday, January 13, when the ceiling
fell," he says. Two carpenters were working on a
scaffold in the south Findlay room replacing
decorative wooden moldings on the coffered ceiling
when, very slowly from the southwest end, it began
to collapse. "They were still white in the face by the
time I got there," he says. Two electricians had just
started working in the attic upstairs when the
ceiling collapsed. They heard a big crash and looked
down to see daylight shining through the floor
joists. "One guy told me he was so scared he just
kept holding on to something."
Pieces of the 1924 ceiling, a series of wooden
coffers, kept falling for the next hour or so. When
the dust finally settled, 80 percent of the 1,600
square-foot ceiling lay heaped on the floor. "Thank
God it fell when it did," he says. Half an hour
earlier and the place would have been flooded. The
sprinkler system had been shut off and drained only
that morning for the duration of renovations.
32