Fremont and University

As of December 29, 2016,  I've been to all 26 Seattle Public Library branches to fulfill my 2016 Creative New Year's Resolution. You'll see photos of them all below, and I am adding details to the final posts. 

I plan to continue my library visits with stops at some of the nearly 50 locations of the King County Library System, which marks its 75th anniversary in 2017. See you at the library!


Fremont

Looking through a cut-out
in a kid-size chair
at the Fremont branch.

I completed my tour of the 26 Seattle Public Library branches in Fremont. This felt fitting because I began this project as a way to see my city, and Fremont is where I go when I most want to feel like a tourist in my own backyard. From the Troll to the Center of the Universe to the Solstice Parade, Fremont remains the epicenter of Northwest whimsy — and this library feels like the neighborhood's clubhouse, with its heavy timbers and low-slung Mission-style reading chairs.

City of cranes, and of libraries

Library service in Fremont dates to the 1890s, but this branch finally opened in 1921. Daniel R. Huntington was the architect and, according to this HistoryLink article, he called its style Italian Farmhouse.

I was especially taken by the diptych of paintings on the east wall. Meant to echo WPA-style murals, the paintings show what Fremont looked like when the Lake Washington Ship Canal was created to connect our region’s inland waters to the Salish Sea. There’s no mention of the paintings on the SPL website, so I asked about them. Librarian Darcy Stone hauled out a binder with some details on the paintings, including the fact they’d almost vanished during the branch’s 2005 renovations, but that a community “hue and cry” helped save them.

I told Darcy about my mission to visit every branch, and how I'd saved Fremont for last. That’s when she handed me a rare copy of the passport that SPL created in 2008 (five years before I moved here!) to commemorate the completion of work funded by the 1998 “Libraries for All” measure. She stamped the Fremont page for me.

So now I guess I'll start over!



University


When the land for the University branch was chosen, some people complained that it wasn't exactly central to the U District. As Alyssa Burrows wrote in a 2002 HistoryLink article, “the library was so remote that a librarian asked the city to post a direction sign to help people find it.”

It’s still true that the U District’s commercial area along University Way (“the Ave”) is several blocks away and campus is about a 20-minute walk. But the Seattle Public Library’s University branch is well-situated to serve the fast-changing area on the west side of the U District.

The first thing I noticed in this branch was the skylight above the circulation desk, bringing light into the building on a gray Seattle day. A display of seasonal books added warmth, too, on topics ranging from soup recipes to home decor to winter birding.

This branch was funded by Andrew Carnegie. It opened in 1910 and it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also one of three older branches — Fremont (below) and Queen Anne are the others — that have received 21st century renovations designed by what’s now known as Hoshide Wanzer Architects.

Blue and green exterior accents are a handsome touch 
at the University Branch. 

Southwest, South Park

Southwest

In 1956, Seattle voters approved bond money to replace the then-50-year-old Central Library, earmarking any leftover funds to build more branches. The Southwest branch was the first to be built with that pool of money, and it opened in 1961 to replace a library "station" near the Fauntleroy ferry. (As the library website explains, stations had fewer books than branches and were open fewer hours, but they helped the city meet surging demand during and after World War II.) Two years after it opened, it was the third-busiest branch in the system.

By the 21st century, the branch needed a new, more prominent look along busy 35th Avenue S.W. A 2005-2007 renovation doubled available space and added a vibrant exterior, including delightful details that reward closer inspection, too. Especially noteworthy is "Anthology," a series of five sculpted pairs of bronze hands by British Columbia artist Katherine Kerr that are now featured on a coloring sheet from the library. A relief sculpture, "Mother Reading With Child" by Charles W. Smith, was preserved from the previous building.



South Park

Another successful bond election, the 1998 "Libraries for All" campaign, finally brought a branch to the South Park neighborhood in 2006. This is a neighborhood of contrasts and kids, and the branch's creative, colorful design reflects this, from carpeting that recalls book spines and reading alcoves for teens to a pegboard-like ceiling with 90,000 holes to absorb noise. Outdoors, a pattern in the concrete path is meant to evoke the nearby Duwamish River and an art installation called "South Park Lights" are inspired by the neighborhood's heritage.

West Seattle, High Point, Delridge

Magnolia and Ballard

Douglass-Truth

In a post earlier this month, I wrote of my visit to one of the two Seattle Public Library branches named for a person, Madrona's Sally Goldmark branch. Here's the other one, named for two people: the Douglass-Truth branch in Seattle's Central District.

I walked here last Saturday via a 3-mile loop from First Hill, since I was eager to see more of the neighborhood. My route passed other strongholds of Seattle black culture including Garfield High School and several historically black churches, as well as signs of accelerating diversity in this always-changing area (hipster coffee houses and new apartment buildings). As I arrived outside the library and took a few photos, I saw several other people who look like me (white, middle aged) enter the branch. But once inside, as I settled into the comfortable magazine reading area, two young black men took chairs nearby in our shared community living room.

This branch dates to 1914, and it was originally named for Henry Yesler, the pioneering Seattle businessman and politician whose mansion served as an early home to the Seattle Public Library until it burned in 1901. This was the first branch financed by city funds instead of money from Andrew Carnegie, and, as the SPL website recounts, it served "a hardscrabble area that was home to many newcomers to the city" and "soon became the busiest branch in the Library system."

Although Carnegie didn't underwrite this branch, the original design by architects W. Marbury Somervell and Harlan Thomas borrowed from his traditional floor plan. As the Central District became home to successive waves of new residents, the Yesler Branch continued to bustle until the 1960s, when it nearly closed. Enter the local chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority of black collegiate women, who donated books in 1965 to start what's now one of the largest collections of African-American literature and history on the West Coast, with more than 10,000 items. In 1975, the branch was renamed to honor activists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, whose portraits by artist Eddie Ray Walker dominate the original upstairs space.

This month, the Douglass-Truth branch marked the 10th anniversary of a 2006 expansion. The project, which doubled the branch's square footage, added a downstairs accessed by a light-filled grand staircase that features artwork by Vivian Linder and Marita Dingus. Outside, a "Soul Pole" totem depicts local history from an African-American perspective. And as all SPL branch libraries do, the branch holds many special events, including story times and homework help sessions.

Beacon Hill, New Holly, Rainier Beach

Columbia, Madrona, Montlake

One of the things I'm enjoying most about this blog is the opportunity it gives me to visit various parts of my city. I've only lived in Seattle for three years, and there are neighborhoods (including one in this post, Madrona) I'd never before seen and others I've only been to a time or two.


Columbia



Columbia branch at dusk

I made my way to the Columbia branch last weekend for a self-publishing workshop provided as part of the Seattle Writes program. About 30 people thronged the downstairs meeting room to hear Beth Jusino explain the nuts and bolts of getting your words into pixels or print. Afterward, I took a seat upstairs to read until the branch closed. (I'm just about done with the wonderful new book You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachel Corbett.)


The Columbia branch is another of the six surviving Seattle public libraries among the eight funded by Andrew Carnegie, and it's on the National Register of Historic Places. The original part of the building opened in 1915, and I especially like its large windows and exterior corners -- the latter remind me of a pile of books. A 2003-2004 expansion nearly doubled the branch's size and added several dozen photos by artist Gu Xiong to showcase the neighborhood's rich culture.


Columbia City became part of Seattle in 1907, but it was its own entity before that. According to the Seattle Public Library website, the old city hall held the first local library and its restroom was in a furniture store across the street. Today's Columbia City library is a landmark in one of Seattle's most interesting neighborhoods.



Madrona-Sally Goldmark

Hanging out on the window seat

When I wrote about the Wallingford branch a few weeks ago, I mentioned how tiny it is. The Madrona-Sally Goldmark branch is actually the smallest in town with 1,707 square feet of program area (compared to 2,000 sq. ft. in Wallingford), but it feels a little bigger to me since it has a few more places to sit -- including a delightful cushioned window seat that doubles as a storytime area.


You'd think there's a good story behind this branch's name, and you'd be right. It honors a local activist who convinced the Seattle Public Library to remodel a small brick building that had served as Fire Station No. 12. Originally called the Station House branch, the building was renamed after Sally Goldmark's death. There's all kinds of whimsy in this branch, including a sign on the hand sanitizer dispenser relaying the location of books on germs and microbes (579.3); signs offering branch trivia; and a big, colorful painting by artist Mary Iverson behind the check-out desk.



"The Peaceable Kingdom" is this diverse neighborhood's nickname, and it's also the name of a sculpture outside the library by Richard Beyer. Madrona Elementary School is across the street, and the charming urban village along 34th Street is a block away in the other direction.








Montlake

I ticked Madrona off my library list following an afternoon stroll at the nearby Seattle Japanese Garden -- and a week earlier, I was on the northern end of the same area to see the autumn leaves at the Washington Park Arboretum. I'd been to the Montlake branch on a similar mission this time last year, but not since I'd started this blog, so I paid another visit. This is one of the newest branch libraries in town, marking its 10th anniversary in 2016.

The Montlake branch has a brick and cedar design that echoes many homes in the neighborhood, plus a bi-level entrance flooded with natural light. Artist Rebecca Cummings used this feature to strong effect with a skylight sundial that streams colorful spotlights into the library and marks the sun's passage from spring to autumn. My favorite spot to sit at the Montlake branch is a comfy chair that looks out onto a landscaped area -- and there are some pops of greenery inside the library, too.

Wallingford

Entrance to the Wallingford branch library on NE 45th St

My first "home" public library was in the Hillcrest Shopping Center, a modest suburban strip mall near Pittsburgh, PA. I'd beg to go there while my mom did grocery shopping at the A&P that anchored the block, or after I'd suffered through a doctor's appointment a few doors down the way in the other direction. Eventually, the Bethel Park Public Library moved into much bigger quarters, but I still have a mental image of that snug literary port of my childhood. It came immediately back to mind with my visit to Seattle Public Library's Wallingford branch.



Library associate Christine Burgoyne adds to the window display

It's really tiny. Most of the adult seating is at computers, and there are no comfy chairs for resting with a book, so I can't really recommend this branch as somewhere to "read in the rain." There is one table for little children (with a "park strollers here" sign nearby, though I'm not sure you could fit more than one). But what the Wallingford branch lacks in space, it makes up in curb appeal. People walking by or waiting for a bus on busy 45th Street can window shop for something to read. This week, the featured volumes represent Banned Books Week, with a few Halloween titles creeping into the mix.

I also like the subtle neon signs by Ellensburg artist Richard Elliott, fitting in this neighborhood of small, mostly locally owned businesses. There's a blue world, part of the Seattle Public Library's logo; a red eye to represent mystery; a white @ symbol to represent computer access (perhaps the most important part of every library's mission these days); a green puzzle piece to evoke the gathering and use of information; and a yellow atom symbol for human knowledge.

Wallingford has had a branch library since 1949. The current location opened in 2000, tucked into the streetside corner of a building that mainly serves as headquarters for Solid Ground, a nonprofit that is working to end poverty and undo racism. This seems fitting, since libraries are a place where people without home computer access can look for jobs; where we can read some of those banned books for insights into cultures and views other than our own; and where we can generally open our eyes to the world. As the Wallingford branch shows, it doesn't take a lot of square feet to meet those goals.

International District/Chinatown

Yikes! It must be summer in Seattle, because although I've been reading, it hasn't been raining much -- and I'm really late in making this post!

A few weeks ago, I was in the International District to do double duty. First, I visited the ID/Chinatown branch library, where they're now open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. every Friday. To celebrate, Seattle Public Library has a Find it on Friday game featuring cool trading cards. I won't spoil the surprise ... you need to go check it out yourself ... but here's a photo of a marvelous tea cup display on the wall.

On my way out, I noticed that a book I have, Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, was on prominent display. (I got a signed copy from Ken 22 years ago while living in Idaho. The book is about how exiled Japanese-Americans used baseball to pass the time at the Minidoka Internment Camp there during World War II.)

From the library, I headed to a release party-book signing for the new graphic novel, Walk Don't Run, by my friend Dale Hom, a lifelong friend of Ken's, who also was at the book launch. Small world! So here's a photo of Dale (right), Ken (center), and my buddy Rebecca Hom. Yay, Dale!

Walk Don't Run is a fun and thought-provoking read about growing up Asian in Seattle. I'm sure it, too, will soon be available at Seattle Public Library branches -- and you can order a copy of your own via Third Place Books.

Queen Anne

If you're not from Seattle, I imagine you think we all live on houseboats -- and if not on a houseboat, at the crest of Queen Anne Hill, with a view like this. Considering its lofty perch in one of our city's most emblematic neighborhoods, the Queen Anne branch is a modest affair, but one that appears well beloved by its users.

This is another of the branches bestowed upon Seattle by Andrew Carnegie. It opened on New Year's Day in 1914, was renovated in 2007, and retains much of its original charm. (I absolutely love the front door.) Fun fact: Col. Alden Blethen of the same family that still owns the Seattle Times contributed $500 toward the original construction.
Inside, you'll find some comfy places to while away a few hours; my favorite is a circular six-seated chair with burgundy cushions, with magazines nearby and DVDs to borrow. (An aside: Your Sister's Sister, seen here, is a wonderful little set-in-Washington film by director Lynn Shelton. You should definitely check it out.)

There are always interesting events at this branch. Two this weekend include a screening of the excellent Akeelah and the Bee on Saturday (May 21) at 2 p.m. and an appearance by Seattle Reads author Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves) at 4 p.m. on Sunday (May 22.) See more 2016 Seattle Reads events here. There are also Pajama Story Times here several Monday evenings a month. Do you think grown-ups could come wearing our PJs?