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Alec Baldwin has donated $250,000 to the East Hampton Library to help build its new children’s addition, on which ground is expected to be broken in March 2012. The East Hampton Library announced the gift, which comes from the Alec Baldwin Foundation, in a press release on November 1.
An active supporter of the library, Mr. Baldwin serves as honorary co-chairman of its Children’s Addition Committee and is the co-founding chairman of its annual Authors Night fundraising event. In 2010, he donated $25,000 for the children’s addition.
Thomas Twomey, chairman of the library’s board, said on Monday that Mr. Baldwin had announced he would make the donation during an Authors Night dinner for about 45 people hosted by Mr. Twomey on August 13 at his home in Northwest Woods. Mr. Baldwin, who has a house in Amagansett, and Dick Cavett, who has a house in Montauk, were the two guest authors; they were “very great interacting with each other,” according to Mr. Twomey.
At the end of the dinner, Mr. Baldwin “announced that he was so happy with what we were doing at the library, helping the children of the community, that he wanted to show his support and appreciation,” Mr. Twomey said. “He had already been a major donor to the library for four or five years—but not this amount.”
“We’re thrilled; it’s the kickoff of our campaign,” Mr. Twomey said. The project is expected to cost about $4 million, and about $2.5 million, or 60 percent, has been raised so far.
Mr. Baldwin, a film actor and star of the television series “30 Rock,” has also appeared in commercials for the Capital One Bank’s Venture Rewards credit cards. He has earmarked his fees from that advertising campaign to arts and cultural organizations. Just a few days before Authors Night, Mr. Baldwin’s contract with Capital One was renewed, and he said he was planning to donate “all the proceeds from the second round of commercials to charity,” Mr. Twomey said.
Mr. Baldwin donated $250,000 to Guild Hall in May 2011 and $250,000 to the Hamptons International Film Festival in July. He has also made donations to the New York Philharmonic and the Roundabout Theater.
He was not available for comment on Monday.
The East Hampton Library children’s addition, designed by the architect Robert A.M. Stern, will add more than 2,000 square feet to the children’s room, allowing the library to add 10,000 more children’s books, new computers and seating, and to add a separate space for young adults. The addition will also make it possible to install a second elevator, making the entire library handicapped accessible, and provide 16 new parking spaces. The overall project is 6,800 square feet, with more of half of that underground.
The project was approved by the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals in June after a State Supreme Court ruling in May essentially overturned the ZBA’s rejection of the addition in July 2010. Approval from the East Hampton Village Design Board is still needed but is expected to be less problematic; Dennis Fabiszak, the library’s director, said on Tuesday that it was likely to be in place before Christmas. Library officials hope that construction will be completed by late spring 2013.
Mr. Twomey said Mr. Baldwin is a patron of the library in both senses of the word: “He’s very interested in our historical documents, particularly interested in Lion Gardiner,” he said. The rooms where the historical documents are preserved were part of another addition undertaken about 15 years ago for which another capital campaign, chaired by Mr. Twomey, raised about $3.5 million.
Founded in 1897, the East Hampton Free Library opened in one room of Clinton Hall on Main Street and moved to its present spot on the corner of Main Street and Buell Lane in 1912. Since then, every addition to the library has been paid entirely with money that was raised privately, Mr. Twomey said.
Over the last 100 years, about 60 percent of all the money spent, on both construction and operations, “has been donated by generous people in the community, and that’s unique—there’s no other library in the country that does that except for the New York Public Library,” he said.
More than 100 individuals have signed on as honorary co-chairs of the capital campaign—Mr. Cavett, Robert Caro, Paul Goldberger, George Stephanopoulos, Adelaide de Menil, Dr. George Dempsey, Ben Krupinski, Charles Soriano, Richard Barons and Carl Icahn, among them. The leaders of the Presbyterian, Methodist, Calvary Baptist, Catholic and Episcopal churches, as well as of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, are co-chairs as well, as are the chairmen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the New York Public Library.
The support of civic, cultural, business and religious leaders from both the summer and year-round communities, Mr. Twomey said, shows the widespread support that the children’s addition enjoys. “That’s why we’re confident that we’ll be able in this fundraising drive to cross the finish line,” he said.
