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NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Kids may not remember how old they were when they picked up that first Harry Potter book or jumped ship with Huckleberry Finn and his friends. But thanks to resident Thomas Leghorn, children of all ages have developed a love for reading at what is now the Hugueonot Children’s Library.
It was in 1992 that Leghorn first noticed that a building associated with the New Rochelle Public Library was closed, falling apart and being vandalized. It was funded by the city of New Rochelle’s yearly budget and had become neglected during a financial struggle. His solution: petition the city to allow him and a few other families to lease the property for $1 a year, rehabilitate it and feed the library back once it was stocked and staffed.
“We were able to ignite the same spark we had for the library to hundreds in our community — it shows what an incredible place New Rochelle is to live,” he said. According to Leghorn, that joint effort brought the building back to life. New Rochelle residents — including an electrical contracting company owner who brought in a crew to do the wiring and another person who donated computer cables for free — all stepped in to help and lend their expertise.
Five years later, the doors of the Hugueonot Children’s Library opened. Leghorn began his first of 13 years on the New Rochelle Public Library's Board of Trustees to further his mission of keeping the facilities up to date. “Our library is still as vital in the digital age. People use it as resource in searching for jobs,” he said.
Leghorn is also a Eucharistic minister and lector at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church and works as an attorney at law for Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP in White Plains. He gives back to his profession by contributing toward a committee for the New York State Bar Association on professional ethics.
“My attitude about everything in my personal and professional life is that you have to give more than you take out of something," he added.
Christine: Thank you for your article but I was only one of the six original group that started the children's library. This great project would not have taken flight without the equally tremendous participation and contributions of David & Evelyn McCabe, Dan and Kate Ronan and my wife, Theresa Kump Leghorn. We were only the spark that brought the New Rochelle Community to life. The six of us could not have moved the ball forward one inch without the tremendous outpouring from the community and our former mayor, Tim Idoni, and the city council.