Melrose Y's New $1.5 Million Elevator Is, For Many, Priceless

MELROSE, MA — For more than five decades, Kay Danieli has taught classes at the Melrose Family YMCA. And for more than five decades, she had to make sure her classes were somewhere the seniors she taught could access.

There was no elevator at the Y, housed in a building that predates Fenway Park by more than two decades. From 1890 on, there was no way to get up and down without using the stairs.

Then came Wednesday.

"It's the best thing since chocolate," Danieli said at a morning ribbon-cutting on the third — yes, third — floor of the Y.

High praise for an elevator, you might be thinking. But for the 80-year-old Danieli, this is a reality more than 50 years in the making.

"My dream has come true," she said.

It wasn't easy getting here. Drastic additions to 131-year-old buildings in downtown historic districts can take time and money.

That was certainly the case here. The project started in Nov. 2019 and was expected to be finished in April 2020. The pandemic didn't do any favors, but neither did finding major water issues when digging started.

The project's price tag nearly doubled from $800,000 to $1.5 million.

Not ideal. But it's hard to put a price on accessibility.

"Well, this is probably the most expensive elevator in Melrose, but worth every penny to make our building accessible to more people," YMCA of Metro North CEO Kathleen Walsh said.

Walsh talked about how disheartening it was when she learned people in wheelchairs had to go down the back loading ramp and ring the doorbell, hoping someone would hear it, just to get in and have access to just the basement.

"I said, 'That is not who we are,'" Walsh recalled.

For Danieli, the elevator is one of the most exciting things in her tenure at the Y — which is saying a lot, since she's the longest-standing member at the YMCA of Metro North.

Danieli hasn't missed teaching her class since a double-knee replacement, and even then she showed up soon after with crutches. She always believed in showing her classes — 40 seniors at the Y, another 40 at the Milano Center — that they can do more than they think they're capable of.

"Seniors sometimes get left behind," she said. "Now everything is open, as it should be for all."

The elevator isn't the only new addition for people returning to the Y in the upcoming weeks. There's a new-look lobby and locker rooms — and for those who never got a chance to get to the third floor, that's pretty nice, too.

"It is so rewarding to work in a facility with such a rich history of adapting to keep pace with the changing needs of our community,’ says Katelyn Papadopoulos, senior branch executive of the Melrose Y. "If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that we can all adapt to new ways of working and being together to support the health of our community."

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi and Instagram at Melrose Happening. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.