My Library: Memories
Share your memories of the Westport Public Library. Send them to Marta Campbell and we’ll post them with others.
Oh, did I love the library! My mother took all four of us as children regularly to the library and I was always so excited to go. Especially on rainy days, I think that is when we were most likely to go. I drank in the dewy rain smell mixing with the musty scent of the books and became enveloped in another universe. I was flying high and there were no narcotics involved. I thought the library was the greatest thing since sliced bread! It was an amazing place to a very curious and knowledge-thirsty child.
I remember taking home stacks and stacks of books, (it may have been only 3 at a time or something like that), but I always took out as many as I could. I loved watching the librarian stamp the cards in the books and thought I wanted to do that someday when I was grown up. The rhythmic blunk, blunk, blunk was hypnotic. I was crazy about mysteries and wonderful stories about the Ancient Egyptians or Greek gods and goddesses and so much more.
Visiting the Westport Library instilled a lifelong love of books and reading and has a special place in my heart and memories. I've taught reading for a local Literacy Council, worked at a bookstore for a time and have participated in advanced copy book reviewing for a publishing company and love to share the passion. I only hope that more parents realize the importance of making libraries and reading a part of their children's lives and also that more books and libraries are available to all reaches of the world.
Here is one of many memories of the fabulous Westport Library, which spoiled/ruined me for life in the rest of the library impoverished land. By the way, while talking to my mother about this piece, she recalled having a 2 book limit when she was a child. She said when she moved to Westport (45 years ago and counting) and came to the library and was told there was no limit to the number of books she could check out she said "I thought I had died and gone to heaven".
Saturday was library day. My mother would pack all of us into the station wagon for errands, but most crucially, a stop at the library for the weekly supply of new books. My mother was a reader and I learned to read very early. This was necessary, since it was hard to convince anyone in my family to remove their nose from their own book to read me UNCLE WIGGLY for the eight hundred and fifty ninth time. Although we had money to buy books, we rarely did. Having grown up poor, buying books was an alien concept to her. The library provided for us abundantly.
The library I remember was in the old building. The adult room was downstairs, my siblings and I climbed the back stairs to the children's room. There the most desperate decisions of my childhood would be made. Which books to read this week? I had a numbers problem you see. Children were only allowed to check out 6 books at a time, but there were 7 days to a week. Since I was scarfing books at the rate of at least one a day, this left me (oh the horror!) BOOKLESS by the end of the week! And if I happened to choose a dud book......well that was just miserable.
The librarians were sympathetic when I pleaded to be allowed more books. But rules were rules, though they worked hard to ensure that I had six satisfying titles each week. As I got older, this became more challenging, as I read faster than the new aquisitions came in. About the age of eleven, I decided to read my way alphabetically through all of the fiction. I think I made it up to the Ds. I had to cheat a bit, for although I found wonderful authors like L.M. Boston, I also had to read all of Louisa May Alcott. JO'S BOYS bored me silly.
I do not remember what age I was when I was finally allowed to graduate to the adult section. I do remember wandering the aisles, stroking the spines of rows of books, listening to the low humming noise emanating from hundreds of books, hundreds of possibilities. I was about to embark on an endless journey. For in the adult section, there is no six book limit.
I owe a great deal to the Westport library. Thank You!
Born in 1947, my parents moved me to Westport when I was 11 months old, so I have no memories which pre-date my Westport childhood. Among my earliest memories is coming with my mother to apply for my first library card, probably in 1951, as I could write my own name and read a few words, by the age of four. The “old” (oldest) library was a very intimidating place with columns, marble, limestone, and heavy wrought iron doors leading up the stairs to the children’s section. The main thing I remember was being required to speak in whispers and being very respectful of everyone. I felt as if I were joining a special secret club as best my four year old mind could understand.
Things had changed dramatically by the time I reached junior high (1959-1962) and the new modern glass library had opened. Almost every Saturday of the school year, I was dropped off by my parents at the back door of the library to spend the day “studying.” I met three of my girl friends; we sat at a table together, and tried valiantly to study while giggling and passing notes back and forth. The highlight of the day was lunch out together, which often included an order of “The Kitchen Sink” a gigantic ice cream sundae available at a luncheonette in Colonial Green. We were 13 and out on the town!!
I was always an avid reader and remember reading all the Marguerite Henry horse books, as well as a slim volume called, "A Dog of Flanders” which left me sobbing uncontrollably at the end. About ten years ago, I came across a copy of "A Dog of Flanders” in a thrift shop and had to buy my own copy, which I still have.
I also remember being so impressed at the wide range of encyclopedias available at the new library. The World Book, Collier’s, Britannica, New World. These were the reference books of the day….allowing me to look up information about anything I wanted to know. That’s the most valuable service which the Westport Library taught me, to learn how to do research, serves me today, even in the age of Google.
Thank you for my Westport education.
My family moved to Westport in 1955 when I was starting third grade, and I got my first library card right away. How well I still remember enjoying the children’s library on Saturdays, often with my younger sister, Wendy, tagging along. We were both avid readers – courtesy of my parents, Betty and Arnold Dorfman, who always frequented the library. My mother, in fact – now 86 and still going strong – is a member of three library-sponsored book groups.
As a young teenager, some of my fondest memories involve the library. I remember being dropped off at the library most Saturday mornings. I’d do some reading, perhaps work on a school assignment, check out a few books, meet my friends, and then take off for lunch at the drug store counter in the center of town and maybe do a little shopping afterward. Our parents would pick us up in the late afternoon. What lovely days those were, and how grown up we all felt to be left free to wander around on our own. It was a different time…
After college, I lived in New York City for many years, and always missed the proximity to the Westport Library. I found myself buying a lot more books in those days, since the city libraries were so much less inviting. Of course, when I visited town on the occasional weekend, I would often take a trip to the library – usually with my father, who was well known to all the librarians. He passed away 15 years ago, and his memory is still so tied up with the library that it’s a special pleasure to visit it so regularly today.
I moved back to town when my daughter, Katie, started fourth grade. She was never as much of a library user as I, preferring to own her own books. But I immediately started using the library regularly again. Since I read so much – an average of two books a week – I’d never have room in my condo to buy books, and I get practically everything out of the library. In fact, I often peruse the “coming soon” lists at various Internet sites, and then reserve what looks appealing before it even is published.
I probably visit the Westport Library between once and twice a week! The librarians are so friendly and greet me by name, as they did my father. I also love the art exhibits in the main lobby. The Library has been an important part of my past, and remains one in the present. I can’t imagine not taking advantage of its wonderful offerings!
Westport Library—the Steinberg family’s story
Connecticut-born and residents of Westport since 1960, Sybil and Harold grew up in Bridgeport and Norwalk, respectively. We each remember our childhood libraries with affection.
Sybil:
I recall the whispering librarians in the children’s section of the large library on Broad Street in Bridgeport, who were attentive and helpful to a child already hooked on reading. I remember the thrill of finally being allowed to climb the imposing marble staircase to the adult section, where later I found all the information I needed for the term papers that I researched during college breaks.
When we moved to Westport, I made sure that each of our sons achieved the proud milestone of acquiring his own library card. Weekly visits to the library were essential to their growing –up years.
Today, after a career in publishing, I use the library resource center almost as often as I use my right arm.
It’s a joy for me to share my excitement about current books when I speak at the library every October.
I’m a committed member of the committee for Authors at the Library, which brings writers here to share the inspiration behind their work.
I’m always caught up in the indefatigable enthusiasm of the Westport Reads committee, of which I’m a member.
I’m proud to be a member of the library’s Advisory Board.
Could my life in Westport be as full and satisfying without the library, or without the leadership of Maxine, Marta and Joan Hume?
Never! The library and its dedicated staff is a wonderful asset that we can never take for granted.
Harold:
As a child I discovered worlds beyond my small town at the South Norwalk library. I used to wait for every edition of the London Illustrated News with its rotogravure pictures.
As a retired physician I still rely on the library to help keep me up to date with medical journals.
In Westport I’ve watched the library grow from a small crowded series of reading rooms to a world-class facility.
Currently I use the reading room to widen my world the same way it did when I was a child. Usually I can spend hours in the reading room. In addition, I enjoy participating in the annual crossword puzzle contest.
Jonathan:
My earliest memories of the Library were when I accompanied my mother, who was a frequent visitor. The old Westport Public Library, at the corner of the Post Road and Main Street, initially seemed a bit spooky to me. I recall it being fairly dark, with shadows at the ends of the stacks, making me feel somewhat claustrophobic. It was also the place where my mother would invariably run into someone she knew, get drawn into extended conversation, and leave me to my own devices for what seemed like eons. With time on my hands, I sometimes gravitated to some of the large format books, particularly atlases and travel-related tomes, captivated by the photographs.
As I grew older, the Library became less daunting and more of a resource. But even when I became an avid reader, I was more a denizen of the school library than the public one. When I got to college, the main library made me very nervous, with the sense of tension among the students feverishly studying almost palpable. I tended to grab the books I needed and then hightail it back to my room.
Still later, as my mother became a reviewer and then an editor for Publishers Weekly, I confess I lapsed as a library user almost altogether, being able to draw from an endless stream of new books and galleys gleaned by my mother, already reviewed for my tastes and without fear of late fines!
My “renaissance,” as it were, as a fan of public libraries is only fairly recent, driven initially by the frequent borrowing of books by my wife, Nancy, who devours close to two mysteries per week, and then by my three kids, who have all become avid readers and borrowers of books, DVDs, and CDs. Since I was obliged to be in the library frequently, if only as chauffeur, I got back in the habit of borrowing books and DVDs myself.
Through WestportREADS, I got to know Maxine better and became aware of how the Westport Public Library had eclipsed the traditional paradigm and had become the “information nexus” of Westport. Before I knew it, I was attending lectures and volunteering at the Book Fair.
Finally, as a member, now chair, of the RTM Library, Museum and the Arts Committee, I am totally immersed in the library culture, a believer in the Library’s vision of the future and its expanded role as a resource to all Westporters. Yes, quite a journey from the kid who once found the whole library experience a little off-putting!
Rachel:
The Westport Library has always seemed like a friendly, familiar place to me. The books I have at home just don’t feel the same as the ones on the library shelves – they don’t have the same untold history behind them. So despite the fact that I have books piled all over my room, I’ve never been able to keep myself from selecting a library volume at least once a month. I’ve also been volunteering and participating in various library activities for as long as I can remember, my favorites being the Harry Potter midnight releases and the huge summer book sales. I’ve even kept my very first, hand-written library card, which I’ve had to renew twice, because it reminds me of how long the library has been a part of my life. Even though I’ll be leaving Westport soon, I’m sure I won’t stop coming back to the library.
When I was five and we lived in Mt. Vernon, NY, the local library was in a bus. Once a week, when the library arrived to spend the afternoon parked at the curb next to our elementary school, my mother would take my brother and myself by our little hands and walk us up Dunham Avenue to climb the huge bus steps into another world.
The blinding light of day remained at the bottom of the steps because sagging shelves covered every possible window and source of natural light. If there were any lamps inside that bus, I cannot imagine for the life of me what would have powered them unless the librarian/driver had left the engine running.
It was great! My eyes would adjust and my heart would pound over the potential mysteries and fairy tales my mother would read to us for the rest of the week, late in the afternoon, after our long walk with the puppy. Stories that lay hidden between the covers of hundreds of dusty books looming over my head were soon to be mine.
Each hard bound was offered in one of four colors. Dull red, dull green, dull blue and dusty black seemed to be the only choices offered by publishers back then. Expensively bound books with gold-leaf titles and leathery covers were becoming rare and probably remained on the nice clean shelves back at the real building where the bus books were chosen. But it didn’t matter. It was time to for me to choose.
My mother would finger a few book spines lovingly but forget about herself for the moment and walk us down the narrow isle to the children’s section—that being a few shelves at the back of the bus. Today, it would be an emergency exit and a pasted sign reminding all drivers following that the bus had been thoroughly checked for sleeping children.
Small as the selection was, I would get to choose whatever I wanted without my mother’s input, put three books under my arm and proudly walk up to a librarian with blue hair to check them out.
Austrian by birth, my mother was raised surrounded by servants who delivered any books she needed to her private quarters in one of her parent’s homes. She wrote in her memoirs that she was embarrassed that she was privileged and actually prayed that she could become blue collar when she grew up so she, too, could go to the library.
During the war, my mother arrived in her new homeland, Miami Beach, by the skin of her teeth, and married a Bavarian, not a Viennese. They were well matched in their love of reading, and learning, and stayed together for over fifty happy years. Raising us, my mother relished our status as a family barely making it from paycheck to paycheck and while we had spaghetti on Thursdays, her lofty reading habits stuck. She made sure they were stuck to us as well.
Our family left Westchester in 1956 after our street began turning “dangerous.” We moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, a stone’s throw from the Westport border, right near the old Gregory Store. We only had one car, but when it was not my father’s turn to drive the carpool to his Stamford engineering firm, my mother shoved us all into the two tone, (light and dark blue) Ford for a trip to the Westport Library—much, much closer than the “big” library in downtown Norwalk.
And much better too!
I had a baby sister by then and we all would make a beeline for the children’s section, her teetering in my mother’s arms as we all loudly clanged up the treacherous, rod-iron staircase directly over the adult stacks beneath.
The Westport Library was jamming, I tell you. Filled to the rafters every minute it was open. Mid-century mothers, dressed in shirt waists, did not have a clue that very soon the children they were towing would become pot-smoking rebels anxious to split with the previous generation in every way, never to understand each other again—much less read the same books.
Fathers, for the most part, did not have time to read. They rose at dawn, ate a full breakfast at the kitchen table with the entire family, and grabbed brief cases and brimmed hats from the tiny front closets of their split leveled, fifty-style homes. Their mortgages may have been as high as two thousand dollars and had to be paid on time.
The men would climb into honking carpool cars with engines gunning and barrel down to the Westport railroad station parking lot for the ride into New York City. The ride would cost a buck fifty each way, if I recall, and there were no commuter cards to flash. They read newspapers, not books from the library, and upon arrival in New York City, they smoked cigarettes in their advertising agencies, or wherever, and behaved like sexist pigs toward their secretaries. It was expected. Then, they would run for Grand Central long before Jackie Kennedy revamped it, grab more newspapers and then smoke more cigarettes while downing scotch and waters in the bar cars all the way home on the chugging train. Lurching and spilling booze from Greenwich to Saugatuck, many completely-in-the-bag men would jump out of the bar cars doors long before the train could screech to a stop in the station. Once off, they would race across the tracks, probably risking electrocution, car doors slamming as drivers swerved away so as not to get stuck in conga line of traffic trying to cross the blue iron bridge over the river, and home. Books were the last thing on their minds and so away went one quarter of library book readership.
When I moved to Westport as a semi-adult, I took an office overlooking the current library site and directly over the Ship’s Restaurant to house my design business. At that time, in 1981, the new library site was a patch of crab grass covering a landfill. The old library was still across the Post Road and I would go over there to take out books about business and tapes to shove in those new things called VCRs.
One day bulldozers arrived and never left until a new library, huge, was completed outside my window overlooking Jessup Green—hiding the patch of crab grass thoroughly and I could no longer see much of the river.
When they started bringing books across the street, the new library was cavernous and each book could have had its own bedroom. The old library, which had burgeoned out of its own walls into various second floors and attics of an adjacent building, was now empty and sad with only ghostly memories of tight knit families prowling for adventure and romance novels.
When the new library started sinking a few years later, I secretly hoped my view would be restored. I never said this out loud, of course. What happened instead was that commercial real estate in Westport starting surging out of control and our building was sold to the owner of the Ship’s restaurant downstairs. One day he arrived to announce that our rent was going from 8 bucks a foot to 33. I packed my office and left for a cheaper part of town which happened to be only around the corner, on top of the Post Road movie theatre with no view of the new library except from a bathroom in the back. The whole place stunk of popcorn.
My old office soon became an Eddie Bower linens department and people buying sheets and monogrammed towels were the ones to see the new library sinking over yonder.
When the library was shored up, and people forgave the architects for the structural faux pas, the library became less popular for some reason. Maybe it was the popularity of the the VCR, maybe it was the something else, but the cavernous building always seemed empty and it was easy to lose one’s way to the research desk or the DVD room at the end of the stacks. When they moved the film department downstairs the library had two entrances and residents had difficulty deciding which one to use. A building needs one solid, inviting entrance and exit. A door one can trust will lead you to your car without having to walk around the entire structure, up hills with arms full of heavy books and tired children.
The river walk happened. I missed all the fun because it was cemented long before I even knew that people could memorialize loved ones within it. I was always sorry about missing this but we had small kids at the time and the library was so confusing that we stopped going there as much. The librarians in the children’s section were crabby too, very crabby, and there were toys, instead of books all over the floor. We also noticed that other people’s children were misbehaving badly. Not ours of course. Never ours.
My own young family started hanging out in the new Barnes and Noble instead. They had nice, plush chairs and it was much cozier than the new library. It still is some ways although the library has really worked hard to change that “warehouse” feeling so obvious to all who enter.
So what do we do now that our library has many more cozy places but still lacks that atmosphere we all crave? Where do we go now that we work out of converted closets and cubbyholes? What do we want our library to be?
These are questions we should ask over and over because libraries are now places that want, and can, offer so much—but require the ambience of a living room in order to get folks to stay for a while.
I understand the Westport Library is thinking long and hard about their role in town over the coming decades. When they decide they are ready to speak about their plans, please listen carefully! We need to remain a nation of readers if we are to survive with dignity, in my humble opinion. Allow the Westport Library’s exuberant new leadership to show us the way back to that wonderful time when TV’s were black and white and usually off.
For a mischievous high energy kid of the 1960’s, the Westport Public Library was not a safe haven. The three women that ran the institution were strict! They stood behind the checkout desk, with their arms crossed and watched the entire two levels of the library like hawks. One peep in the corner section and one of them was on you like a flea on a dog.
The library did serve several purposes for a goofball like me. We walked home in those days from Bedford Junior High School (now Saugatuck Elementary) and if an upperclassmen bully (like my brother) was haunting you on your walk, you could always duck into the library. Nobody and I mean nobody messed with those three ladies. It was also a good place to flirt with the young ladies. Girls seemed to be attracted to the library for some reason and you could always get a peek at a Staples co-ed as well.
In the maturing decade of the boomer generation, if you didn’t have the gall to go down to Bill’s Smoke Shop and check out “Playboy”, you could always check out the latest issue of “National Geographic” at the library. Occasionally, they would have pictures of topless African women. Not a huge turn-on but Bill’s catered to bullies. If you were not careful you could end up in a fight behind the movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon.
The library also served an important purpose if you were hanging out too late at the YMCA playing pool. You could always tell Mom that you were at the library. She loved that. But you had to remember it was closed on Mondays. Moms were pretty smart about that.
The library at its old location on the Post Road became a “hang out” spot for local drug dealers (according to all parents who lived here) in the early 1970’s. It was a bathroom stop for many protestors during an anti-war protest in 1972. When the library moved to its present location, it replaced Rogers Field. I played Babe Ruth ball there and it was all land fill-in. If you dug in too hard at the plate, your cleats might pull up an old beer can.
Such memories. The library really served as a hub for the small town atmosphere of old Westport. It was a time and place where you could hitch hike anywhere in town, ride your bike on any road in free safety and find a pick up baseball game on any empty piece of land.
Any vacant lot has now been occupied and our children are so structured that they have little “free down time.” The library is massive and beautiful. The women behind the desk now wear tight sweaters and have perfect teeth. The kids run wild in the upper tiers knowing little of what “shush” actually means. Neighbors chat freely about life. The rules have been dissipated and the rigidity of the past has been somehow been replaced by an arena of chaotic and desperate hurry.
| Wendy Carroll | Leah Creatura | Harriet Wolfson Flehinger |
| Merle Spiegel | The Steinbergs | Catherine Stone |
| Carl Swanson | ||
| WENDY CARROLL |
Oh, did I love the library! My mother took all four of us as children regularly to the library and I was always so excited to go. Especially on rainy days, I think that is when we were most likely to go. I drank in the dewy rain smell mixing with the musty scent of the books and became enveloped in another universe. I was flying high and there were no narcotics involved. I thought the library was the greatest thing since sliced bread! It was an amazing place to a very curious and knowledge-thirsty child.
I remember taking home stacks and stacks of books, (it may have been only 3 at a time or something like that), but I always took out as many as I could. I loved watching the librarian stamp the cards in the books and thought I wanted to do that someday when I was grown up. The rhythmic blunk, blunk, blunk was hypnotic. I was crazy about mysteries and wonderful stories about the Ancient Egyptians or Greek gods and goddesses and so much more.
Visiting the Westport Library instilled a lifelong love of books and reading and has a special place in my heart and memories. I've taught reading for a local Literacy Council, worked at a bookstore for a time and have participated in advanced copy book reviewing for a publishing company and love to share the passion. I only hope that more parents realize the importance of making libraries and reading a part of their children's lives and also that more books and libraries are available to all reaches of the world.
| LEAH CREATURA |
Here is one of many memories of the fabulous Westport Library, which spoiled/ruined me for life in the rest of the library impoverished land. By the way, while talking to my mother about this piece, she recalled having a 2 book limit when she was a child. She said when she moved to Westport (45 years ago and counting) and came to the library and was told there was no limit to the number of books she could check out she said "I thought I had died and gone to heaven".
Saturday was library day. My mother would pack all of us into the station wagon for errands, but most crucially, a stop at the library for the weekly supply of new books. My mother was a reader and I learned to read very early. This was necessary, since it was hard to convince anyone in my family to remove their nose from their own book to read me UNCLE WIGGLY for the eight hundred and fifty ninth time. Although we had money to buy books, we rarely did. Having grown up poor, buying books was an alien concept to her. The library provided for us abundantly.
The library I remember was in the old building. The adult room was downstairs, my siblings and I climbed the back stairs to the children's room. There the most desperate decisions of my childhood would be made. Which books to read this week? I had a numbers problem you see. Children were only allowed to check out 6 books at a time, but there were 7 days to a week. Since I was scarfing books at the rate of at least one a day, this left me (oh the horror!) BOOKLESS by the end of the week! And if I happened to choose a dud book......well that was just miserable.
The librarians were sympathetic when I pleaded to be allowed more books. But rules were rules, though they worked hard to ensure that I had six satisfying titles each week. As I got older, this became more challenging, as I read faster than the new aquisitions came in. About the age of eleven, I decided to read my way alphabetically through all of the fiction. I think I made it up to the Ds. I had to cheat a bit, for although I found wonderful authors like L.M. Boston, I also had to read all of Louisa May Alcott. JO'S BOYS bored me silly.
I do not remember what age I was when I was finally allowed to graduate to the adult section. I do remember wandering the aisles, stroking the spines of rows of books, listening to the low humming noise emanating from hundreds of books, hundreds of possibilities. I was about to embark on an endless journey. For in the adult section, there is no six book limit.
I owe a great deal to the Westport library. Thank You!
 |
| HARRIET WOLFSON FLEHINGER |
Born in 1947, my parents moved me to Westport when I was 11 months old, so I have no memories which pre-date my Westport childhood. Among my earliest memories is coming with my mother to apply for my first library card, probably in 1951, as I could write my own name and read a few words, by the age of four. The “old” (oldest) library was a very intimidating place with columns, marble, limestone, and heavy wrought iron doors leading up the stairs to the children’s section. The main thing I remember was being required to speak in whispers and being very respectful of everyone. I felt as if I were joining a special secret club as best my four year old mind could understand.
Things had changed dramatically by the time I reached junior high (1959-1962) and the new modern glass library had opened. Almost every Saturday of the school year, I was dropped off by my parents at the back door of the library to spend the day “studying.” I met three of my girl friends; we sat at a table together, and tried valiantly to study while giggling and passing notes back and forth. The highlight of the day was lunch out together, which often included an order of “The Kitchen Sink” a gigantic ice cream sundae available at a luncheonette in Colonial Green. We were 13 and out on the town!!
I was always an avid reader and remember reading all the Marguerite Henry horse books, as well as a slim volume called, "A Dog of Flanders” which left me sobbing uncontrollably at the end. About ten years ago, I came across a copy of "A Dog of Flanders” in a thrift shop and had to buy my own copy, which I still have.
I also remember being so impressed at the wide range of encyclopedias available at the new library. The World Book, Collier’s, Britannica, New World. These were the reference books of the day….allowing me to look up information about anything I wanted to know. That’s the most valuable service which the Westport Library taught me, to learn how to do research, serves me today, even in the age of Google.
Thank you for my Westport education.
| MERLE SPIEGEL |
My family moved to Westport in 1955 when I was starting third grade, and I got my first library card right away. How well I still remember enjoying the children’s library on Saturdays, often with my younger sister, Wendy, tagging along. We were both avid readers – courtesy of my parents, Betty and Arnold Dorfman, who always frequented the library. My mother, in fact – now 86 and still going strong – is a member of three library-sponsored book groups.
As a young teenager, some of my fondest memories involve the library. I remember being dropped off at the library most Saturday mornings. I’d do some reading, perhaps work on a school assignment, check out a few books, meet my friends, and then take off for lunch at the drug store counter in the center of town and maybe do a little shopping afterward. Our parents would pick us up in the late afternoon. What lovely days those were, and how grown up we all felt to be left free to wander around on our own. It was a different time…
After college, I lived in New York City for many years, and always missed the proximity to the Westport Library. I found myself buying a lot more books in those days, since the city libraries were so much less inviting. Of course, when I visited town on the occasional weekend, I would often take a trip to the library – usually with my father, who was well known to all the librarians. He passed away 15 years ago, and his memory is still so tied up with the library that it’s a special pleasure to visit it so regularly today.
I moved back to town when my daughter, Katie, started fourth grade. She was never as much of a library user as I, preferring to own her own books. But I immediately started using the library regularly again. Since I read so much – an average of two books a week – I’d never have room in my condo to buy books, and I get practically everything out of the library. In fact, I often peruse the “coming soon” lists at various Internet sites, and then reserve what looks appealing before it even is published.
I probably visit the Westport Library between once and twice a week! The librarians are so friendly and greet me by name, as they did my father. I also love the art exhibits in the main lobby. The Library has been an important part of my past, and remains one in the present. I can’t imagine not taking advantage of its wonderful offerings!
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| THE STEINBERGS |
Westport Library—the Steinberg family’s story
Connecticut-born and residents of Westport since 1960, Sybil and Harold grew up in Bridgeport and Norwalk, respectively. We each remember our childhood libraries with affection.
Sybil:
I recall the whispering librarians in the children’s section of the large library on Broad Street in Bridgeport, who were attentive and helpful to a child already hooked on reading. I remember the thrill of finally being allowed to climb the imposing marble staircase to the adult section, where later I found all the information I needed for the term papers that I researched during college breaks.
When we moved to Westport, I made sure that each of our sons achieved the proud milestone of acquiring his own library card. Weekly visits to the library were essential to their growing –up years.
Today, after a career in publishing, I use the library resource center almost as often as I use my right arm.
It’s a joy for me to share my excitement about current books when I speak at the library every October.
I’m a committed member of the committee for Authors at the Library, which brings writers here to share the inspiration behind their work.
I’m always caught up in the indefatigable enthusiasm of the Westport Reads committee, of which I’m a member.
I’m proud to be a member of the library’s Advisory Board.
Could my life in Westport be as full and satisfying without the library, or without the leadership of Maxine, Marta and Joan Hume?
Never! The library and its dedicated staff is a wonderful asset that we can never take for granted.
Harold:
As a child I discovered worlds beyond my small town at the South Norwalk library. I used to wait for every edition of the London Illustrated News with its rotogravure pictures.
As a retired physician I still rely on the library to help keep me up to date with medical journals.
In Westport I’ve watched the library grow from a small crowded series of reading rooms to a world-class facility.
Currently I use the reading room to widen my world the same way it did when I was a child. Usually I can spend hours in the reading room. In addition, I enjoy participating in the annual crossword puzzle contest.
Jonathan:
My earliest memories of the Library were when I accompanied my mother, who was a frequent visitor. The old Westport Public Library, at the corner of the Post Road and Main Street, initially seemed a bit spooky to me. I recall it being fairly dark, with shadows at the ends of the stacks, making me feel somewhat claustrophobic. It was also the place where my mother would invariably run into someone she knew, get drawn into extended conversation, and leave me to my own devices for what seemed like eons. With time on my hands, I sometimes gravitated to some of the large format books, particularly atlases and travel-related tomes, captivated by the photographs.
As I grew older, the Library became less daunting and more of a resource. But even when I became an avid reader, I was more a denizen of the school library than the public one. When I got to college, the main library made me very nervous, with the sense of tension among the students feverishly studying almost palpable. I tended to grab the books I needed and then hightail it back to my room.
Still later, as my mother became a reviewer and then an editor for Publishers Weekly, I confess I lapsed as a library user almost altogether, being able to draw from an endless stream of new books and galleys gleaned by my mother, already reviewed for my tastes and without fear of late fines!
My “renaissance,” as it were, as a fan of public libraries is only fairly recent, driven initially by the frequent borrowing of books by my wife, Nancy, who devours close to two mysteries per week, and then by my three kids, who have all become avid readers and borrowers of books, DVDs, and CDs. Since I was obliged to be in the library frequently, if only as chauffeur, I got back in the habit of borrowing books and DVDs myself.
Through WestportREADS, I got to know Maxine better and became aware of how the Westport Public Library had eclipsed the traditional paradigm and had become the “information nexus” of Westport. Before I knew it, I was attending lectures and volunteering at the Book Fair.
Finally, as a member, now chair, of the RTM Library, Museum and the Arts Committee, I am totally immersed in the library culture, a believer in the Library’s vision of the future and its expanded role as a resource to all Westporters. Yes, quite a journey from the kid who once found the whole library experience a little off-putting!
Rachel:
The Westport Library has always seemed like a friendly, familiar place to me. The books I have at home just don’t feel the same as the ones on the library shelves – they don’t have the same untold history behind them. So despite the fact that I have books piled all over my room, I’ve never been able to keep myself from selecting a library volume at least once a month. I’ve also been volunteering and participating in various library activities for as long as I can remember, my favorites being the Harry Potter midnight releases and the huge summer book sales. I’ve even kept my very first, hand-written library card, which I’ve had to renew twice, because it reminds me of how long the library has been a part of my life. Even though I’ll be leaving Westport soon, I’m sure I won’t stop coming back to the library.
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| CATHERINE STONE |
When I was five and we lived in Mt. Vernon, NY, the local library was in a bus. Once a week, when the library arrived to spend the afternoon parked at the curb next to our elementary school, my mother would take my brother and myself by our little hands and walk us up Dunham Avenue to climb the huge bus steps into another world.
The blinding light of day remained at the bottom of the steps because sagging shelves covered every possible window and source of natural light. If there were any lamps inside that bus, I cannot imagine for the life of me what would have powered them unless the librarian/driver had left the engine running.
It was great! My eyes would adjust and my heart would pound over the potential mysteries and fairy tales my mother would read to us for the rest of the week, late in the afternoon, after our long walk with the puppy. Stories that lay hidden between the covers of hundreds of dusty books looming over my head were soon to be mine.
Each hard bound was offered in one of four colors. Dull red, dull green, dull blue and dusty black seemed to be the only choices offered by publishers back then. Expensively bound books with gold-leaf titles and leathery covers were becoming rare and probably remained on the nice clean shelves back at the real building where the bus books were chosen. But it didn’t matter. It was time to for me to choose.
My mother would finger a few book spines lovingly but forget about herself for the moment and walk us down the narrow isle to the children’s section—that being a few shelves at the back of the bus. Today, it would be an emergency exit and a pasted sign reminding all drivers following that the bus had been thoroughly checked for sleeping children.
Small as the selection was, I would get to choose whatever I wanted without my mother’s input, put three books under my arm and proudly walk up to a librarian with blue hair to check them out.
Austrian by birth, my mother was raised surrounded by servants who delivered any books she needed to her private quarters in one of her parent’s homes. She wrote in her memoirs that she was embarrassed that she was privileged and actually prayed that she could become blue collar when she grew up so she, too, could go to the library.
During the war, my mother arrived in her new homeland, Miami Beach, by the skin of her teeth, and married a Bavarian, not a Viennese. They were well matched in their love of reading, and learning, and stayed together for over fifty happy years. Raising us, my mother relished our status as a family barely making it from paycheck to paycheck and while we had spaghetti on Thursdays, her lofty reading habits stuck. She made sure they were stuck to us as well.
Our family left Westchester in 1956 after our street began turning “dangerous.” We moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, a stone’s throw from the Westport border, right near the old Gregory Store. We only had one car, but when it was not my father’s turn to drive the carpool to his Stamford engineering firm, my mother shoved us all into the two tone, (light and dark blue) Ford for a trip to the Westport Library—much, much closer than the “big” library in downtown Norwalk.
And much better too!
I had a baby sister by then and we all would make a beeline for the children’s section, her teetering in my mother’s arms as we all loudly clanged up the treacherous, rod-iron staircase directly over the adult stacks beneath.
The Westport Library was jamming, I tell you. Filled to the rafters every minute it was open. Mid-century mothers, dressed in shirt waists, did not have a clue that very soon the children they were towing would become pot-smoking rebels anxious to split with the previous generation in every way, never to understand each other again—much less read the same books.
Fathers, for the most part, did not have time to read. They rose at dawn, ate a full breakfast at the kitchen table with the entire family, and grabbed brief cases and brimmed hats from the tiny front closets of their split leveled, fifty-style homes. Their mortgages may have been as high as two thousand dollars and had to be paid on time.
The men would climb into honking carpool cars with engines gunning and barrel down to the Westport railroad station parking lot for the ride into New York City. The ride would cost a buck fifty each way, if I recall, and there were no commuter cards to flash. They read newspapers, not books from the library, and upon arrival in New York City, they smoked cigarettes in their advertising agencies, or wherever, and behaved like sexist pigs toward their secretaries. It was expected. Then, they would run for Grand Central long before Jackie Kennedy revamped it, grab more newspapers and then smoke more cigarettes while downing scotch and waters in the bar cars all the way home on the chugging train. Lurching and spilling booze from Greenwich to Saugatuck, many completely-in-the-bag men would jump out of the bar cars doors long before the train could screech to a stop in the station. Once off, they would race across the tracks, probably risking electrocution, car doors slamming as drivers swerved away so as not to get stuck in conga line of traffic trying to cross the blue iron bridge over the river, and home. Books were the last thing on their minds and so away went one quarter of library book readership.
When I moved to Westport as a semi-adult, I took an office overlooking the current library site and directly over the Ship’s Restaurant to house my design business. At that time, in 1981, the new library site was a patch of crab grass covering a landfill. The old library was still across the Post Road and I would go over there to take out books about business and tapes to shove in those new things called VCRs.
One day bulldozers arrived and never left until a new library, huge, was completed outside my window overlooking Jessup Green—hiding the patch of crab grass thoroughly and I could no longer see much of the river.
When they started bringing books across the street, the new library was cavernous and each book could have had its own bedroom. The old library, which had burgeoned out of its own walls into various second floors and attics of an adjacent building, was now empty and sad with only ghostly memories of tight knit families prowling for adventure and romance novels.
When the new library started sinking a few years later, I secretly hoped my view would be restored. I never said this out loud, of course. What happened instead was that commercial real estate in Westport starting surging out of control and our building was sold to the owner of the Ship’s restaurant downstairs. One day he arrived to announce that our rent was going from 8 bucks a foot to 33. I packed my office and left for a cheaper part of town which happened to be only around the corner, on top of the Post Road movie theatre with no view of the new library except from a bathroom in the back. The whole place stunk of popcorn.
My old office soon became an Eddie Bower linens department and people buying sheets and monogrammed towels were the ones to see the new library sinking over yonder.
When the library was shored up, and people forgave the architects for the structural faux pas, the library became less popular for some reason. Maybe it was the popularity of the the VCR, maybe it was the something else, but the cavernous building always seemed empty and it was easy to lose one’s way to the research desk or the DVD room at the end of the stacks. When they moved the film department downstairs the library had two entrances and residents had difficulty deciding which one to use. A building needs one solid, inviting entrance and exit. A door one can trust will lead you to your car without having to walk around the entire structure, up hills with arms full of heavy books and tired children.
The river walk happened. I missed all the fun because it was cemented long before I even knew that people could memorialize loved ones within it. I was always sorry about missing this but we had small kids at the time and the library was so confusing that we stopped going there as much. The librarians in the children’s section were crabby too, very crabby, and there were toys, instead of books all over the floor. We also noticed that other people’s children were misbehaving badly. Not ours of course. Never ours.
My own young family started hanging out in the new Barnes and Noble instead. They had nice, plush chairs and it was much cozier than the new library. It still is some ways although the library has really worked hard to change that “warehouse” feeling so obvious to all who enter.
So what do we do now that our library has many more cozy places but still lacks that atmosphere we all crave? Where do we go now that we work out of converted closets and cubbyholes? What do we want our library to be?
These are questions we should ask over and over because libraries are now places that want, and can, offer so much—but require the ambience of a living room in order to get folks to stay for a while.
I understand the Westport Library is thinking long and hard about their role in town over the coming decades. When they decide they are ready to speak about their plans, please listen carefully! We need to remain a nation of readers if we are to survive with dignity, in my humble opinion. Allow the Westport Library’s exuberant new leadership to show us the way back to that wonderful time when TV’s were black and white and usually off.
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| CARL SWANSON |
For a mischievous high energy kid of the 1960’s, the Westport Public Library was not a safe haven. The three women that ran the institution were strict! They stood behind the checkout desk, with their arms crossed and watched the entire two levels of the library like hawks. One peep in the corner section and one of them was on you like a flea on a dog.
The library did serve several purposes for a goofball like me. We walked home in those days from Bedford Junior High School (now Saugatuck Elementary) and if an upperclassmen bully (like my brother) was haunting you on your walk, you could always duck into the library. Nobody and I mean nobody messed with those three ladies. It was also a good place to flirt with the young ladies. Girls seemed to be attracted to the library for some reason and you could always get a peek at a Staples co-ed as well.
In the maturing decade of the boomer generation, if you didn’t have the gall to go down to Bill’s Smoke Shop and check out “Playboy”, you could always check out the latest issue of “National Geographic” at the library. Occasionally, they would have pictures of topless African women. Not a huge turn-on but Bill’s catered to bullies. If you were not careful you could end up in a fight behind the movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon.
The library also served an important purpose if you were hanging out too late at the YMCA playing pool. You could always tell Mom that you were at the library. She loved that. But you had to remember it was closed on Mondays. Moms were pretty smart about that.
The library at its old location on the Post Road became a “hang out” spot for local drug dealers (according to all parents who lived here) in the early 1970’s. It was a bathroom stop for many protestors during an anti-war protest in 1972. When the library moved to its present location, it replaced Rogers Field. I played Babe Ruth ball there and it was all land fill-in. If you dug in too hard at the plate, your cleats might pull up an old beer can.
Such memories. The library really served as a hub for the small town atmosphere of old Westport. It was a time and place where you could hitch hike anywhere in town, ride your bike on any road in free safety and find a pick up baseball game on any empty piece of land.
Any vacant lot has now been occupied and our children are so structured that they have little “free down time.” The library is massive and beautiful. The women behind the desk now wear tight sweaters and have perfect teeth. The kids run wild in the upper tiers knowing little of what “shush” actually means. Neighbors chat freely about life. The rules have been dissipated and the rigidity of the past has been somehow been replaced by an arena of chaotic and desperate hurry.
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dcelia@westportlibrary.org