The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Public Library

As much as I try to avoid the place, I keep being drawn back to my hometown of Mount Vernon, New York.  On trips back there like the one I'm currently on, I usually always drive through this little gotham at least once. 

And I am appalled by the squalor of it all.  Parts of the downtown look like Berlin after World War II.  Except nobody has bothered to rebuild Mount Vernon.  My once beloved city simply sits there like a malignant tumor.  I think back to the glory days of what used to be there.  Wonderful stores, palatial movie theaters, great schools.

All gone.

But, still sitting like the Alamo on Second Avenue between First and Second Street, is the Mount Vernon Public Library.  It goes nowhere.   Probably still doesn't have air conditioning.  Or, if it does, it's noisy.  I haven't been inside for years, but I want to go inside just one more time.

To relive childhood again.

I've read that, most recently, there was a special election to save the Public Library.  What?   Were there real estate developers trying to tear it down and put up a Popeye's Fried Chicken in its place?   Well, whatever the case, there was a huge turnout and the Library lives on with a new slate of trustees.  Of course, probably 75% of the city can't read.   But, if they could, they have a magnificent library to get books from.

I come from the school years where the Public Library was embraced.  Back in the day when the Mount Vernon, NY school system wasn't run by a band of thieves and urban pirates, teachers tried to promote reading at an early age.  And the way they did was regular class trips to the Public Library.

Our Grimes Elementary School was between Tenth and Eleventh Avenue.  An easy walk led by our teacher and whoever's mom was the class mother that year.  We'd go outside and walk double file the eight blocks to the bastion of books.  When you're in the second or third grades, this seems like you are walking to the Moon.  We'd do this excursion twice a year.  And, each time, we'd have to be bored through the same orientation.  How to look up a book.  How to use a card catalog.  Where the bathroom was.  Somehow, this was conducted by some older librarian who always seemed to have a speech impediment.

There were two floors to the Public Library.  The kids were relegated downstairs to the children's section.  And, with our newly minted library cards, we were always encouraged to take out a book or two.

And that's how it starts.

I became a very active reader back in the day.  I didn't go for the classics or even the condensed versions of American or English literature that were offered for kids.  Nope, I went for the books that had recurring characters very similar to me.

I was big into some character called Danny Dunn.  This book was one of the first that I ever took out of the library.
I also loved this series of books about kid characters as authored by Beverly Cleary.  Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy.  Ramona and Beezus.

Okay, it wasn't Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo.  But, what the hell, I was reading.  Wasn't that the point of this jaunts to Second Avenue?

For a while, the Public Library was so intent on developing good and frequent reading habits that they came to you.  With the Mount Vernon Public Library Bookmobile.

You'd wait for it to come to your neighborhood on its regular schedule.  Then, you'd pile in to peruse about two dozen book shelves.  It certainly didn't have the inventory of the main building.  And, looking at this photo above, I can't believe that all these kids got into the vehicle all at the same time. 

But it really wasn't the same as making that walk to the big edifice on Second Avenue.

I think that, once you graduated from the sixth grade, you also had a little rite of passage at the Public Library, too. 

You got to go upstairs.  To the glorious and gigantic adult section.

To do so, there was a huge flight of stairs.  It was so old that it creaked as you climbed it.  There was no way anybody could sneak into the adult department.  The sound of the footsteps could not be hidden. 

Moreover, as you entered this grand hall, you suddenly felt grown up.  There was a world here that went way beyond Danny Dunn and Henry Huggins.   All sorts of novels, biographies, and sports books.  With a card catalog built into the wall that seemed to span two city blocks. 

The habit of reading that our teachers had promoted worked for me.  Once "upstairs," I made a regular habit of going to the Public Library every Saturday morning.  Two books in, two books out.  I was developing very specific literary tastes.  Hollywood biographies.  Presidential biographies.  Sports biographies.  I loved to be immersed in the lives of people I admired.

The walk down First Street from my home on Fifteenth Avenue to the majestic reading castle on Second Avenue was sometimes the highlight of my week.  When I discovered that there were microfilms of old newspapers on file, I went through an extended period where I had to read up on accounts of past important days in American history.

Of course, this was fun to do as long as I figured out how to loan the damn microfilm on the machine.  I never seemed to manage this correctly.  I always had to call over some older librarian.  Upstairs, all these ladies seemed to walk with a limp. 

During high school, the library tradition continued for me.  But, then, I was going there every Saturday because I had so much freakin' homework to do.  And I'd park myself in their reference library to study.

Oh, yeah, and to see if friends were there.

Oh, yeah, and to look at girls.

To prove that library habits die hard, once I went to Fordham University, I quickly became a fixture of Duane Library on the Bronx campus.  Most of the students in there were looking for a place to sleep between classes.  Me?

I was searching through the Hollywood biographies and the Presidential biographies and the sports biographies. 

Sure, I read Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, but only if they were assigned in class.

Somewhere along the way, I lost track of the Mount Vernon Public Library. Once I moved out of what was now a burgeoning city dump, it was no longer handy.

Worse, I was reading less.  And, if I did, it would be something I bought at Barnes and Noble or Borders.

I frequented the Yonkers Public Library for a while.  The Public Library of Beverly Hills is terrific.

But, since those days as a child, nothing ever feels the same about libraries or reading as it did when I was going to the Mount Vernon Public Library.  At those times when I had taken several books out for two weeks.   And had to get an extension of a week or two so I could finish them all.

I need to read more.  And, one more time, visit that brick-constructed memory on Second Avenue.

Dinner last night:  Filet mignon and portobello mushroom with farfalle at J.C. Fogarty's in Bronxville.