He calls it ‘the impossible room’, as in impossible that such a venue exists. Newman is the former director of the adjoining Haskell Opera House, which also straddles the border. Why such a fascination, though, with an innocuous strip of black masking tape? The library relishes its role as a sort of free-trade zone for humans, a reprieve from a border that, while not exactly the Korean DMZ, is no longer the loosey-goosey frontier of decades past. They’ve seen an internet rumour claiming it’s illegal to cross the line. Lately, Rumery has noticed something even odder: some visitors freeze before the black line, as if it were emitting an invisible force field. Some families queue on either side of the line, others in descending height order. They pose with Flat Stanley, a paper cut-out of the children’s book character. They pose while making faces, or while lying across the tape. Not an hour goes by, according to Nancy Rumery, the library’s director, when visitors don’t pose for photos with the line. No wonder – it’s the source of endless attention. Haskell Free Library & Opera House.The tape looks worn. Performances are still held in the opera house each season, and the library continues to offer resources to support its users, even in unprecedented circumstances.įarfan, M. The library continues to be an important part of its local communities and a treasured local institution and historic site. But the library is also a unique reminder of how libraries can and should serve their patrons, regardless of where they may hail from or what language they may speak. The charming nature of the library’s location is certainly a tourist attraction. Indeed, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House may be the only library in the U.S. The reading room, in keeping with the mission of the institution, is international (Farfan, n.d.). The front door of the library opens into Vermont in the U.S., while the collections themselves are on the Canadian side. side of the border, while the stage itself resides in Canada. When watching a performance in the second floor opera house, most of the audience is positioned on the U.S. One of the library’s big draws is its positioning on the international border.

The building itself is wholly unique there’s not another like it in either country. These interesting features aside, however, the unique character of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House extends beyond its outward appearance. The interior is also intentionally preserved, from the furniture and stage scenery to the collection of performers’ signatures adorning the walls of the dressing rooms in the opera house.

Many of the materials used to build the library and opera house were locally sourced, and its construction provides robust examples of late Victorian and Georgian Neo-Classicist architecture. The cost upon its completion in 1904 totaled to approximately $50,000. According to the library’s web page, the building was a gift of Martha Stewart Haskell and her son, Colonel Horace Stewart Haskell, in honor of Mrs. and Canada, in the hopes that it would provide an opportunity for “learning and cultural enrichment” to communities on both sides of the border (Farfan, n.d., para. This remarkable building was intentionally constructed to sit between the U.S. But that’s exactly the setup at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles the international border between the United States and Canada in Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont (Farfan, n.d.). Have you ever been in a building where you can sit in the audience in one country while watching a live performance on stage in another? It’s a peculiar situation, to be sure.

Haskell free library