Columbus Branch Library

7. The Columbus Branch Library

WALKING DISTANCE: Columbus Branch, which opened in 1906, is one of 65 libraries built in the early twentieth century in the formation of the branch libraries of the New York Public Library. Funds were contributed by Andrew Carnegie. The plan was to establish a branch library within walking distance of every New Yorker. Designed by the prestigious architectural firm of Babb, Cook, and Willard, the Columbus Library was originally a three-story structure. A story was removed during a renovation in 1959.

BEFORE AIR CONDITIONING. During summer in the early years, the library's roof was transformed into an outdoor reading room; fitted out with chairs, tables, fringed awnings and books, of course. Do you know that the Columbus Branch lacked air conditioning until the mid-1990s? However, with the help of high ceilings, several large floor fans and cross ventilation, all but the hottest days were tolerable. Moreover, readers in the reference section near the open rear windows enjoyed the bucolic benefit of hearing birds singing and chirping among the trees in the library's tiny backyard.

URBAN OASIS. For more than one hundred years, Columbus Library has been serving Hell's Kitchen residents. They include pre-schoolers delighting in picture books, school children doing their homework, and adults researching a topic or browsing for books and periodicals. The library is both an educational resource and a haven from the busy street scene and overcrowded tenements.

Lorenzo Carcaterra's 1995 bestseller Sleepers is set in Hell's Kitchen. As teenagers growing up in the 1960s, the narrator and his street-smart pals make regular visits the library:

"The public library in Hell's Kitchen was a large concrete gray building sandwiched between a tenement and a candy store. ... My friends and I read quite a few books inside that library, after school on winter afternoons. ...The library was the only place besides church and home where thievery was not permitted. In my time, there, I can remember no book ever being stolen....We also went there for the quiet. There was so much shouting and screaming in our lives, if we didn't have dome kind of sanctuary, we might have gone crazy."

A COMMUNITY RESOURCE: Columbus Library is also a place where the neighborhood's many new immigrants, including South Americans, Arabs, Africans, and Asians can find assistance in coping with a foreign culture. The library's resources and programs include English as a Second Language classes, circulating and reference materials in Spanish, computers with Internet access, special activities for children, and a collection of reference materials about neighborhood history.