This year’s Gifts of Art show and sale at the Carnegie in Edgartown opened Thursday with a reception for 10 local painters whose smaller-scale works are sized and priced for gift-giving.
The Vineyard has always been a place of community and inclusiveness, where open dialogue, democratic ideals and respect for others' opinions, even when we don't agree with them, have been valued.
The small, handsomely detailed 129-year-old building that housed the West Tisbury Free Public Library for a full century was purchased from the town this week by the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust.
With its mahogany trim and mansard roof, the two-story, 600-square-foot former town library will now be restored and returned to active community use. The building is tucked along Music street near the West Tisbury town center.
With $300,000 cash and the unified support of town leaders and residents, the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust today purchases the old agricultural hall on State Road in West Tisbury.
The deal, which had been expected for several months, allows the Edgartown-based trust to acquire the 138-year-old hall from the town and begin restoration work.
Once considered on of the Island’s most important and recognizable buildings, the hall now suffers from considerable disrepair and is no longer a center of local activity.
The trustees of the two-year-old Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Society have begun a campaign - low-key, by mail - for funds and something besides.
“At the moment we are preparing a federal tax exemption application requesting tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service,” says a letter signed by trustees Paul R. Anderson and C. Stuart Avery. “In making this request we are anxious to show the Internal Revenue Service that what started out as an interest of a group of people does have public support and is likely to continue to do so.”
