OTIS — The landscaping out front presents a cheerful, welcoming appearance, complete with a ramp to the front door, but step inside the Otis Library and you are confronted by physical barriers. Now, for the second time, Otis is trying to build a new library with help from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, this time through a small population grant. Inside the library, two steps up lead the way to what was once the librarian’s apartment, and that's just one of them.
Inside that former apartment, there’s a restroom that is fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but how to get to it — there’s the rub. There’s also a small kitchen there, but the water is not potable. The second floor can only be reached by a staircase, rendering that entire floor off limits for use as a public library.
Susan Bauer-Brofman sits at the table that once belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the community room at the Otis Library. The community room can only hold 24 people. The library's community room, aptly named the Roosevelt Room, can seat just two dozen — around a table that once stood in the New York City dining room of Franklin D.
and Eleanor Roosevelt. That 19th century oak table and the chairs that go with it were donated by the same man who gave the initial $10,000 to build the Otis Library, George Graham Hunter, a New York City architect who had a second home in Otis. With usable space calculated at 1,200 to 1,500 square feet, the collecti.