Carol Martin of the Westfield Museum gives an update to the Community Preservation Committee. (Photo by Amy Porter)
WESTFIELD – At the Community Preservation Committee’s quarterly meeting on Jan. 11, City Planner Jay Vinskey reported on available funds. The committee also reviewed open applications and a few completed projects, including an update from Carol Martin on the Westfield Museum, Inc.
With the anticipated state match, there is approximately $800,000 in Community Preservation Act funds. Of this amount, $305,000 is in undesignated funds; $50,000 for open space, $50,000 for historic preservation and $398,000 for affordable housing.
The only application before the committee at this time is $85,000 for Stanley’s Park Colonial Village, to repair and renovate the Grist Mill and the Meeting House. Currently, the committee and Stanley Park’s Board of Directors are negotiating the deed restriction normally required for CPA funds. A decision on the grant was postponed until the April meeting, while the city’s Legal Department reviews an amended restriction from Stanley Park.
In her report on the Westfield Museum to be housed in the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company at 360 Elm Street, Carol Martin said progress has been made since the CPC funded the exterior restoration of the building. The renovation, which cost $734,000 has been completed. They now have a signed affidavit with the Architectural Access Board in Boston, who they are working with along with Andrea Pianka of the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities. As any one of the four stages of the museum opens to the public, that stage must be fully accessible for entry and restroom designs.
“I’m happy to say we have funding in place. The exterior will be done this construction season, and the interior shortly after. If that happens, the main floor will open,” Martin reported on Thursday.
Martin said the main floor will have a space for artisans who can come in now to work on period crafts; The Westfield Room, a state-of-the-art gallery space to mount appropriate displays changing quarterly, and a gift shop. Martin said the changing displays will make it a place to visit more than once.
The whip manufacturing will be consolidated to the second floor. Martin said she hopes to be back in full production, and have the manufacturing operation become a permanent museum display. Martin said that the City of Westfield turned whip making into a manufactured product and designed the machines to do so. She said the machines are unique to the trade, with no other application.
The Whip Manufacturing Co. also has 125 years of business records, and complete records of all transactions from 1919 to 1925. Martin said they would like to have a true archival space in the attic.
CPC member Cynthia Gaylord, president of the Historical Commission said of the 43 whip museums that were operating in the city of Westfield during the industry’s heyday, earning its name as “The Whip City,” this is the only surviving one.
“Nobody has any sense of the influence of Westfield on the country. Those 40 factories not only made whips, but designs for machines,” Martin said, adding that women used to braid leather for whips by hand before a machine was made to do the job. She found an old receipt from a woman in the hilltowns that said “picked up 25 lashes today, returned 32.”
“There are books about communities that made shoes. There is not a well-documented, well-researched book about Westfield whip-making. It’s a tremendous project, and needs to be told,” Martin said.
In response to a question, Martin said the Westfield Museum became a 501(c)3 in 2012. She said they recently received a grant from the Stanley Beveridge Foundation for marketing. Gaylord said that Martin will be making a presentation to the Historical Commission at its meeting on Jan. 22.
Among potential projects for the CPC, the Elks Lodge is looking for $30,000 to refurbish the columns on its building. Gaylord said the Historical Commission sent a letter in support of this project. She said they have also looked at the Pine Hill cemetery, to repair the wrought iron fencing which surrounds it. She said the Commission is interested in getting Pine Hill involved with the 350th Anniversary of Westfield, and looking at the history of the 55-acre cemetery. Neither group currently has an application before the CPC.
There are also no applications for the $400,000 in affordable housing funds. Dan Kelly of the Westfield Housing Authority said they have talked about setting up a housing trust, which could enable the funds to be used for subsidizing rent, or helping first-time homebuyers. He said he would look into a trust.
The housing funds may also be used to subsidize affordable units in a housing project, according to Vinskey. He said if an apartment building were planned, any affordable units with income-based restrictions could tap into CPA funds for those units. Vinskey said there is no minimum number of affordable units required in a project to make it eligible.
The next quarterly meeting of the CPC is tentatively scheduled for April 12, with the annual public hearing to be held in advance of the meeting.
