I remember seeing somewhere that this tack has been persued and what was established is that Carnegie is not the donor of the land, which was typically donated by whomever owned it. Therefore, it would revert to that family, if the donation limited the future use of the site forever.
--- On Fri, 12/5/08, Margie Politzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Margie Politzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [UC] Library Hardball To: "University City listserv" <univcity@list.purple.com> Date: Friday, December 5, 2008, 2:49 PM Re: [UC] Library Hardball Way to go, Karen! It was pointed out that some of the Free Library branches slated for closing, including the Kingsessing branch, were donated to the City of Philadelphia by Andrew Carnegie back in the early 1900's. The Kingsessing branch has a plaque inside the front door that says that it was donated by Andrew Carnegie, Esq, to be used as a library forever. This means that Mayor Nutter may not be able to sell the Carnegie branches, because once they stop being used as libraries, the donor, which would now be the Carnegie Foundation, would have the legal right to seek to have the title revert to them, and thus tie those branches up in litigation. The Carnegie Foundation is located in New York City. I left a voice mail message with a Mr. Ron Sexton alerting him to the situation, and I'm waiting for him to call me back. Given its original ties to the libraries, the Carnegie Foundation would seem like an obvious entity to reach out to in this time of crisis for the libraries today. Did Mayor Nutter explore this possibility?