 Reggie we're here at an open house here at the Mechanics Hall. What's the purpose of the open house? The purpose of the open house is to show the community this beautiful hall and this beautiful building that we have during the holidays and we're going through a lot of new renovations and new there's a lot of new energy and new people involved and We just finished some demolition in this room. You wouldn't know it but the idea is to restore this to its original actually original John Calvin Stevens Ballroom beautiful ballroom 1890 and to have lots and lots of community events weddings receptions dances Antique fairs you name it. We're gonna open this up to the community So we wanted to show it off during the holidays and what has it been used for historically in the past? All of those things in the past concerts lectures Of course grand balls and the association just received a facade grant from the city of Portland to talk about that for a bit The facade grant is the front of the building that's been Neglected for quite a while. There were signs that they took down and they left the holes and they left the pieces of metal So where we got of a side grant Congress Street in has a lot of a lot of the storefronts are now Using the grants from the city to spruce up the neighborhood to make it look Presentable art like I said the building has been in a state of disrepair and neglect for a long time. So We have a $20,000 grant to make the front look Really nice again really restore it to its original look the front doors, especially will be redone and we'll have some new signage which will tell people that we're here and The work some of the work is going to be this weekend and then the rest of it will be Probably the majority of it will be done in the spring The interior of the building the library the ballroom here. It's sort of a hidden gem in Portland What do you want people of Portland to know about that they may not know about it? Well, most people don't know it's here when they walk in they're very surprised so that's why one of the other reasons we had the open house is to have the people just come up and see us and And There's historically The building is very interesting people don't know that we were City Hall after the fire of 1866 for several years We billeted troops and fed them during the Civil War Upstairs in the dining room people are always amazed when they see the size of this room with 20 foot ceilings And then they go upstairs and they see the dining room Which is another huge room with views of the bay. There's a little balcony up there Apparently used to be also an observatory people would come into the building and go up top and look out on the bay and and see the the wonderful vistas from there If people are interested in finding out more about the building or if they want to come by for a visit What can what can they do to do that? Well, the building is open during the library hours We have a library downstairs is a member library You You can join for only twenty five dollars a year Quite a deal and you get a the use of the library We have a lot of fiction and nonfiction contemporary fiction nonfiction and some special collections We also have a lecture series travel lecture series People come in Lecture and show movies and slides of travels around the world What is the library open? Oh the library is open right from ten to three is when the building in the library is open Ten to three Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday or by appointment if you call during those hours or combine during those hours and need to Come at another time we can open up and show people around