Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Perfect Library Down The Street




So we'd lived here 5 1/2 weeks yet I'd not visited our local neighborhood library only one mile away.

Yesterday I changed that.

I stepped into a dark, mysterious room and instantly felt catapulted back 80 years and into a whole other land. But actually, this room housed shelves of books for sale so the dark mystery of it all proved not quite so great, especially when you've got over-40 eyes like mine which can barely read without glasses in the light, let alone the dark.

Well, after lots of squinting and carrying books to the middle of the room beneath the one sorry-excuse-for-a-light, I delightedly found two treasures:









So with my two lovely books I stepped through a doorway into a tiny room to the left, one filled with sunlight from two huge windows, a sitting room with oak chairs worn smooth and the latest newspapers and a few magazines. 

Then I stepped into a hallway and followed voices and black-and-white framed photos of our town's early days until I came to a larger room with arched sunny windows and shelves full of adult fiction. While wandering around, I discovered a tiny corner room, perhaps 8 by 4, and I believe it held maps. 

How fun to just wander through this 1800's brick building where even the women's restroom off the hall appeared delightfully old, what with its heavy wooden door with a sheet of that special glass you can't really see through and it's marble floor.

Happy sigh. 

A mysterious, old library just down the street with tall, windows, marble floors and tiny rooms like cubby holes off larger rooms, all rather maze-like. 

In the 1920's the library shared that building with the police station, jail and post office (until the 1950's). There used to two smaller branch libraries like this one, but this is the only neighborhood library (I read online) which has survived.

And oh my, am I ever grateful it has.


*****


After reading that this building was one a police station, all those tiny rooms now make sense. Interrogation rooms and personal sheriff offices, etc., alas! Feels odd to think, though, that children were coming to this library while people sat in jail cells, below. Hmmm. 

The article I read said that the post office moved out in the 1950's, but it didn't say when the police station left.


*****

8 comments:

  1. I'm transported back just by remembering the SMELL of an old library.

    I passed my husband an old rescued library book the other day just so we could sink deeply into the smell of it.

    Ahhh.., the memories - both old and new!

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  2. sounds like a very interesting place to visit. I love buildings with small rooms and oh the green paint...

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  3. Oh this sounds just delightful, Debra. For a variety of reasons such libraries have often vanished. Three in my 35 years of living in this area of Bath Township and its neighbors. And I miss them. I know the new ones are more practical. But I miss the happy feeling of two libraries which had been old homes and one which was once a church. (Even though the children's room was in the basement with worn large stones on the floor that always had standing water on them after a good rain.) Sometimes I'm too romantic! But I'm thrilled that you have this treasure so close to home!

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  4. Whenever we've moved [too frequently!] the local library has been one of my first visits after getting settled. This sounds like a unique one--maybe a bit more challenging to figure out where everything is, but a building with character.
    I wore out a similar copy of "The Outermost House"--Beston's 'Northern Farm' is my favorite of his books.

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  5. My town had a library like that and it was very charming. Then the city council decided we needed a new, "modern" library. They built it next to the old library, and turned the original library into a museum, so it is still there and is a wonderful museum with lots of local history. Too many towns have torn down those lovely old buildings.
    nancyr

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  6. Anonymous2:11 PM

    Sounds like you will find plenty there to read for a great long time!! Old courthouses type buildings are interesting..reminds me of one in Alabama we visited in a teeny town last spring...found good records from my great grandparents and families!! Happy exploring and reading!!
    Elizabeth in NC

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  7. How much fun you will have there!

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  8. Anonymous5:47 PM

    Love your library, what a pretty building. I like the Beston books, too. Joyce

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