I make it a rule to stay away from library-in-the-news items on this site. But the East New Orleans Branch demolition is more of a sentimental moment to me. When I was a young boy, my mother would bring us out to the East fairly regularly. In those days, the still-viable Lake Forest Plaza was a closer, more convenient trip than Metairie for Mom's mall-related errands and the regional library across the street was a typical stop for us on these trips.
It was the building where I was introduced to the concept of a "Public Library"
Photo stolen from GNOCDC.org
Like everything else in the East, the library was in one of those mid-60s multi-purpose style buildings. The long box could have just as easily been a bank or real estate office on this decidedly un-New Orleans suburban boulevard. Its only distinctive outer featrue was the green copper roofing which reminded me of the Statue of Liberty. The "modern" interior, while retaining the boxy feel, still managed to stoke the young imagination with its surprising number of private corners and hiding places among the stacks, behind the furniture, and in the staff work room where no child could resist wandering from time to time.
As an adult, I would come to do a great deal of wandering around that building. I worked there from 2001 until 2005 when it was inundated by floodwaters. I manned its circulation desk and tech center. I helped to maintain the collections weeding and ordering reference and children's materials. I conducted storytime on a semi-regular basis (often acting as a substitute or, more frequently, a comic-relief prop for Daisy). I decorated the place for holidays.
In preparation for a traveling NASA exhibit, Daisy and I spent a week painting the library's large meeting room space. We were told we would be compensated for our efforts with beer. This never materialized. We didn't care.
I performed various "outreach" functions to the East New Orleans community in promotion of library programs and events... often with Daisy... and often with bizarre results.
I got involved with our hosting of the Prime Time Family Reading program which is sort of like a graduate literature seminar only with read-aloud children's books and 6-10 year old participants... so, in other words, far more interesting. This program also gave me the opportunity to gross out the participants by mixing the snack foods in horrifying ways (hot dogs and vanilla pudding, Cheese and jelly sandwiches with raisins). I miss Prime Time.
At the East New Orleans Library, I met Aaron Brooks and Ruby Bridges. The two of them made a joint-appearance and spoke to a massive crowd of parents and children. I got the impression that he had no idea who she was.
Daisy and I were standing on the front steps watching the Women of Excellence parade on Read Blvd when one of the "Excellent Women" threw us an inflatable tiger pool toy. We named him Skooks.
I also met Cynthia Willard Lewis who appeared one night with some sort of gospel choir she was involved with. They had booked the meeting space for a concert/party after hours and I was the staff member tagged with the responsibility of staying late to lock up after them. I remember CWL getting very excited on stage as she proclaimed that we were "taking this country back for God's people".
Another time, CWL spoke at the unveiling of that NASA exhibit Daisy and I painted the meeting room for. She told us then that she was grateful for all the "wonderful adventure people" who make space exploration possible.
I met Daisy there too. She left after the flood and ended up in California. I miss my friend quite often. Just prior to the flood, we had co-authored a grant application to stage a series of performing arts education programs at our library. In the introduction to our application, I wrote
Despite New Orleans's reputation as a city rich in cultural heritage, the area of the city east of the Industrial Canal is remarkable for its lack of access to cultural and arts resources. While home to 20% of the city's population, including 31% of its school-aged population, Eastern New Orleans is home to only two of its more than 140 art galleries, none of its more than twenty regularly operating stage theater venues, and only a handful (fewer than five) of its hundreds of live music venues. Due to this relative dearth of arts resources, the East New Orleans Regional Library functions as a major center of arts education in the New Orleans East community. In 2004, our branch hosted nine arts programs for an average audience of 60 people. This year, funding for arts programming, ordinarily available through the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library, has been assigned to other priorities. The purpose of this grant proposal is to stage a performing arts series which will allow East New Orleans Regional Library to maintain and expand its vital role at the center of arts education in Eastern New Orleans in 2005 and 2006.
The grant was approved. And then the flood came and none of the above information about East New Orleans was relevant anymore. The photos of the flood damage are still visible on the library's website. (In one of those shots you can see my and Daisy's old desks!) I visited the building and all of the flood-damaged libraries to help salvage materials and equipment. This was not an easy series of trips for me. For obvious reasons, the trips to the East were the hardest.
I'm sorry to see a place I remember so well and so fondly demolished but, knowing what I know about the role that place played in its community, I am extremely happy to see the neighborhood is getting its library back.
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