TROY -- After a quarter century of planning, politics, grant writing and volunteer efforts, the Kate Mullany National Historic Site at 350 Eighth St. is months away from opening to the public.

Volunteer members of the Capital Region’s building trades unions have been investing their own time to provide more than $60,000 in labor to supplement $239,000 to restore the home of Mullany, an Irish immigrant who organized 300 women to form the Collar Laundry Union.

“After 25 years, we're almost there. We’re closing in on it,” Paul Cole, executive director of the American Labor Studies Center which owns the site, said Monday.

Plans are for a soft opening this winter as work nears completion. That will be followed by a formal opening in May during Labor History Month.

“This is the only one of 91 National Historic Sites that has a focus on labor history, women’s history and immigration history all rolled into one,” Cole said.

About $750,000 has been invested to restore the Mullany property. Exterior work is wrapping up and the third-floor apartment where Mullany lived is nearly complete. Landscaping to reflect how the Eight Street property in the North Central neighborhood looked during the 19th century is finished. Cole said historically accurate wallpaper is ready to be installed.

The Mullany historic site also is waiting for a $50,000 state grant to materialize that Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, D-Albany, and Assemblyman John T. McDonald, D-Cohoes, are working on, Cole said.

In 1998, Hillary Clinton, then first lady, visited when the house was named a National Historic Landmark . Clinton was a U.S. senator for New York when she pushed in 2004 for the bill to make the Mullany house a National Historic Site, part of the National Park System.

The effort is now starting to recruit new members for the Friends of Kate Mullany, who would be trained to be docents to lead tours of the house. Cole said people interested in volunteering should call him at 518-331-4474.

There’s also a push to find 19th century period furniture to install in the historic site to show how Mullany and her relatives lived. Some furniture has been donated, Cole said. He advised people who may be able to assist in this endeavor should visit the site’s website at www.katemullanynhs.org.

The website also has information about obtaining tickets to the annual Kate Mullany House Reception on from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 29 at the New York State United Teachers, 800 Troy-Schenectady Road, Latham, and to purchase ads in the reception journal.

Those being honored at the annual reception are U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, CSEA Executive Vice President Mary E. Sullivan, the New York Labor History Association and Sandra Bliss, a NYSUT officer and activist who is receiving the Mullany Legacy award posthumously.