Vonnegut Library raising money for move to Mass Ave
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The founders of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library have a bold plan to move locations, but they need your help to make it happen.
The library says they’re about half way to their $750,000 goal to make the move happen.
While the price is steep, they say this is about preserving one of our own.
“I’ve often said Vonnegut he’s not a dead writer, he is a movement,” said Julia Whitehead, the Founder and CEO of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.
They want to move to a location on Massachusetts Avenue.
“We’ve outgrown this space,” said Kip Tew, who is leading the library’s capital campaign.
The library opened five years ago in a donated space on Senate Avenue. However, the owners are selling the building.
The current library is 1,100 square feet. The new space is 5,400 square feet. It’s also down the street from the Kurt Vonnegut mural.
“They have used this space as an incubator space for small arts before and we’ve incubated and now we’ve grown up,” said Tew.
“That building, 646 Mass. Ave. (the address of the new building) meets all of our criteria. The neighborhood is fabulous, obviously is a thriving arts and cultural neighborhood. But more important than that it, has that sense of community that mattered to Kurt Vonnegut,” said Whitehead.
Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. Over his 50 year career he wrote 14 novels, as well as plays and essays.
He was also a veteran of World War II and a prisoner of war. But they say he was a man of peace, and man of the arts.
“His ideas were very important especially today, they were important 50 years ago,but they’re just as important today. He is timeless,” said Whitehead.
With the new building they hope to bring in more student groups, and house their collection of memorabilia, a collection that includes Vonnegut’s archives. But if nothing else they hope to continue his legacy.
“Kurt Vonnegut is a great example of a great Hoosier who went out into the world and did good things,” said Whitehead.
The fundraising campaign goes through the end of the month. They say they’re on pace to meet their goal, but more help is needed.
They say they want to be in the new space by the spring of 2017, ten years after Vonnegut’s death.
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