Port Washington Public Library history

After a move to City Hall in the 1920’s, the first library board was created.

Under the current department head, Vivienne Lipsitz, an August exhibit featured Martin Muncasi, the photographer who was the first to shoot models in movement for magazine covers like Harper's Bazaar in the 1930's.

The latter produced a booklet and an exhibit containing photos of robber barons commuting to Manhattan by plane, a photo of Amilia Earhart ready for a flight, and an enourmous Pan American Dixie Clipper ready for take off for Marseilles, France, from Manhasset Bay in 1939.

In 1961, donations from William James Niederkorn made possible an independent library, which is now the W.J. Niederkorn Library.

As the collection and usage grew, the library moved to several other buildings in town, settling in 1970 into the newly built 36,500-square-foot modern structure with large glass windows on Library Drive, off Main Street.

Begun in 1980 with grants from the Arwood Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts, the department's first mission focused on documenting African-American families, something that was scarcely done before, said Elly Shodell, the oral historian who heads the department.

The old Wisconsin Street High School building meanwhile was destroyed in a fire in 1982.

A growing immigrant population in the town of 30,000 led to the creation of an English as a Second Language program in 1992, run by a Queens Library System veteran, Peggy O'Hanlon.

The former media services department's head, Lillian Katz, won the 1996 Leo Award, presented to her at the Museum of Modern Art by International Film Seminars, for her film and video librarianship and programming.

In 1999, the library celebrated the determination and foresight of the Port Washington Woman’s Club a century ago by creating a public reading room in a stand alone and grand building.

The W.J. Niederkorn Library expanded in 2001 with an addition that doubled the size of the library.