Hearings Begin On Library Site

Legislation allowing Massachusetts to donate a large chunk of the Bennett Street transit yards for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library began a swift and facile journey through the Great and General Court yesterday.

A mere 18 minutes sufficed for a hearing before the Joint Committee on State Administration. Ten people spoke in favor of the bill, none against.

Mrs. Joseph Kennedy Sr., mother of the late president, represented the Kennedy family and pleaded that "the last barrier to the construction of the Library...be eliminated."

The bill would authorize the state to buy the yards from the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority and then give as many as eleven acres to the federal government, which will run the Library. The Library Corporation could buy any land on the site not actually used for the Memorial.

I.M. Pei, architect for the Library, said he would have a master plan for the Yards' 12-acre area within six months.