In new cities, most people sample the food, the art, and the music. I check out the libraries.
Richard Mia
It started when I was a child. While I was in first grade,
I flipped through books in the children's room of the Oakland Public
Library, carrying them home by the bagful. My mother waited patiently,
giving me her time, I think, because books had not been an option for
her growing up in China.
By the fifth grade I had moved to the upper floors. Stacks were
taller, ceilings higher, people at the tables older. Light streamed
through the windows, time passed quickly, and night fell unexpectedly.
At Brown, I bought most of my books. My friends and I went to the
library when the weather turned nasty, claiming our carrels on the
second floor of the Rock. When the stereos in the dorms got loud and
when the frat parties got going, we retreated to the library. Within
those walls, we found refuge. Returning to campus years later, we
stopped by the Rock and spied younger versions of ourselves in the
reading rooms. We watched them silently through the glass.
In the decades since college, I have read and written for work. Covered
with notes and knickknacks, my desk is now my refuge. But
libraries still fascinate me. On a visit to Los Angeles, I ventured
into the West Fifth Street library. If my parents had first settled
there, I thought, this might have been my childhood haunt. Marked
outside by Byzantine, Egyptian, Spanish, and modern influences, it is
among the city's oldest educational and cultural institutions. Inside,
large murals depict elements of early California history, and
chandeliers grace the ceilings.
In Vancouver I went in search of good Chinese food but returned each
day to the library on West Georgia Street. All exterior curves, the
building resembles parts of the Roman Colosseum. It anchors what city
planners call Library Square, commanding attention in a bustling
neighborhood. Its architect, Moshe Safdie, changed my perception of
what a city library could be. He redefined my ideas about community
spaces. That weekend, dim sum and pan-fried noodles fed my body, but
his building fed my mind. It satisfied a different kind of hunger.
Somewhere between Oakland and Vancouver the public library became
more than a place for me to read and research. Once upon a time, it had
been about function. Now it was a matter of form as well. In Boston my
sister and I roamed Copley Square's classically ornate McKim building,
experimenting with her digital camera. In Montreal, my brother and I
wandered into the Grande Bibliothèque with its sharp lines and glass
walls.
These days, I have been exploring libraries closer to home. I return
occasionally to the Oakland Public Library. An afternoon at the movies
in Berkeley often gets topped off with a visit to the library on
Kittredge Street. Across the bridge in San Francisco, I spend time at
the main library, a stone's throw from City Hall and the Asian Art
Museum. Inside, natural light fills a central atrium, and the names of
local authors are etched into art.
We think of libraries as houses for books, but they're so much more.
They are full of discovery and adventure and beauty and delight. For me
they're full of memories. I dream of calm spaces and big chairs, and a
time in the future, perhaps, when I can stand by my own daughter as she
picks through the shelves, as my mother did for me. I will take her
there not because I couldn't go when I was a child, but because I
could.
Christina Eng '91 is a writer in Oakland, California.
