A Greenwich couple donated a $5 million endowment to the Greenwich Library, marking the largest amount of funding the library has received in over 30 years.
The money will be used to permanently fund a popular speaking series, said Joseph Williams, the library’s director.
“This endowment ensures that the Greenwich Library’s Signature Series will continue to inspire and engage our community for generations to come,” Williams said.
Greenwich Library is listed as an association library, according to the Connecticut State Library. Association libraries are privately controlled — as opposed to municipally run libraries — but are also open to the public.
While 79% of its budget comes from the town, according to the latest annual report publicly available on its site, at least 21% of its funding comes from private sources.
Williams said the $5 million, donated by philanthropists Lynne and Richard Pasculano, reflects the changing nature of public libraries, which offer spaces for residents to engage in thoughtful discourse.
This year’s series, now named the Lynne and Richard Pasculano Signature Series, started off with a talk held by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman Thursday evening.
Friedman spoke in part about the transformative changes artificial intelligence is having on society and politics.
Williams said the talks, which started in 2021, are a way for the library to foster thoughtful conversation.
“I view that as being important for us, as a library, being able to really be a point of unity for our community and bringing people together,” Williams said. “And I think anything he can do to help that process would be very beneficial for us.”
Friedman was asked by an audience member if he regretted supporting Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA concluded, ordered the assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Friedman sharply criticized bin Salman’s role in the assassination, and said he is not on speaking terms with him as a result, and contrasted it with bin Salman’s reforms before 2018.
“That’s why I took that position with zero regrets,” Friedman said.
Residents and audience members were fully engaged, including Lise Stone, who grew up in Greenwich.
Stone became an Associated Press reporter in Hartford, and eventually, a foreign policy adviser to Václav Havel. Havel became president of the Czech Republic after the country adopted a free market economy in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Stone praised Friedman’s talk and said he is skilled at explaining complex ideas to a general audience. Friedman spoke about the need for checks and balances to bridge political divides, using mangroves as a metaphor, since mangroves are crucial to filtering salt build up, and protecting schools of fish from predators.
Stone asked him how American and Russian relations deteriorated after the end of the Cold War.
Friedman explained NATO expansion fed into Russian anxieties, perceived as a humiliation towards a once great power. He said the current war in Ukraine is more about Russian President Vladimir Putin using the war to focus the energies of the country away from serious economic troubles at home.
Stone said the fall of communism ushered in a wave of optimism in the west about the future with democracy and globalization. But she’s not sure anymore.
“People felt that democracy had a chance to broaden, that there would be more people with whom we could relate in the world and build a more trusting and integrated world that could become more prosperous and happy,” she said. “I think that is not at all clear under the present circumstances.”
The Greenwich Library is a new sponsor of Connecticut Public, but had no editorial input on this story.
