The Library of my childhood
by Anne G
A place suspended in time. A memory stamped on my psyche for eternity.
The Public Library on Bushwick Avenue and Dekalb was my refuge and sanctuary. I remember the day I got my very first library card. OMG! To this day, one of the most monumental moments of my life.
It was during the 1950s and 1960s that my sister and I would walk to this magical building to while away the hours reading pages filled with adventure, wonder, and fairy tale endings. There I would read books that opened my appetite for knowledge. The more I read the more I needed to know. I flew through each one on wings of words. Ideas took flight and I traveled far and wide, all within the spacious, high ceiling reading rooms of it’s hallowed walls. My love of language and words grew with every trip, with every book I read.
I loved everything about my Brooklyn library. The Dewy Decimal system, which fascinated me. The kind, bespeckled librarian, always willing to assist in the procurement of new and exciting books. The wooden tables and chairs, and the hush… The soft, quiet tones of those who only spoke when necessary.
My sister and I were very fortunate to have had this uniquely beautiful Carnegie Branch to call our own, built in the Classical Revival Style in 1905 and still in use. We spent countless hours of our precious childhood feeding our fertile minds and fueling our lifelong love for literature, which endures to this day.
"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." - Oscar Wilde
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