Where were you 30 years ago today? I remember distinctly. I was working at Parking Enforcement (aka "a Season in Hell") I was sitting at my desk in the main room when Birdie Westmoreland, a Senior Traffic Officer called out "Central Library is on FIRE!!" WHAT??? We listened to the reports that were flying fast and furious over the Police radio ( aka a rover) They knew I was "Library" that I had started there and still loved that place more than anything. They brought me a rover so I could sit at my desk and do my work while listening to the reports. I distinctly remember hearing the fire department call out. "There's smoke coming out of the top of the tower" I could not take it. I turned off the radio , put my head down on my desk and wept.
People from all over the City joined the incredible staff of the Los Angeles Public Library to save what could be saved of the amazing collection that was Central Library. I had just had the surgery that would enable me to have my daughter and was unable to join them as I could not lift anything more than 5 pounds for two weeks after the surgery.
The Central Library fire was a terrible event and I think the staff does not get the credit they deserve for responding to do what needed to be done. They worked in horrible conditions, doing the unthinkable. After the TV crews and the celebrity volunteers left, it was just staff mostly, trying to make some sense of what to do and what was left. They were and are heroes in this City, unsung because they are City employees, often vilified as being a drain on the public economy.
Still, we rise from this tragedy. I like to think that some good came out of all of this. The people of the City of Los Angeles realized what a treasure library service and the Central Library was and is. Our friends at ARCO helped us raise awareness and 12 million dollars to begin the rebuilding process. Today, the building is bigger and more beautiful that it was thirty years ago. The massive water damage to the books, I believe, improved the largely untested- or at least on this scale untested- technique of "freeze drying" In my heart of hearts, I think that it helped other library systems to be able to deal with their own tragedies, that LAPL was able to teach them something. I believe the bond issues that were passed to improve our branch system is a direct result, in part, of the awareness of libraries that the fore and it's aftermath brought to the City.
Today, slightly after ten a.m when Central Library opens it's doors to the public, I will pause to reflect on what today meant and continues to mean to all of us. May we never forget.
I was unemployed and subbing like crazy at various Northeast Area branches to make the mortgage payments on my new house. That day I was subbing at El Sereno, and all of a sudden there was great excitement.
ReplyDeleteEveryone ran into the staff room and they called me in, and we watched the tiniest black and white TV imaginable, glued to the set.
Not being a library employee at that time there is still a lot I didn't get it on. I understand theyTHINK they had a suspect and that he was detained but never arrested? There was a novel a few years later, and I think it had Dolphins int he title - alas, I tried but found it so convoluted that it was unreadable.
Tom
Brotherhood of Dolphins
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