The Little Library That Could

It is comforting to know that residents of one mid-city Los Angeles neighborhood are arguing vehemently with City Hall because of a library.

The city proposes building a new library because the area’s 64-year-old Washington Irving branch, a historic Romanesque Revival-style building, does not meet earthquake standards.

Yet the city must satisfy conflicting neighborhood interests in deciding whether to upgrade the old library or build a new one. As more old buildings fail to meet safety codes, it’s a decision the city will face repeatedly.

To many, the Washington Irving branch library on Arlington Avenue is a place that nurtures an all-too-rare neighborhood feeling. It provides a stabilizing influence. Residents of the slowly gentrifying West Adams area might not always agree on such contentious issues as whether a spacious Craftsman house should be restored as a one-family dwelling or, more pragmatically, used to house several families. But neighborhood differences get left at the door of a library, where all types of people go in peaceful and learned pursuits.

It’s thus not surprising that some residents want the branch building to be renovated and remain a library. But city administrators rightly point out that more space is needed in order to accommodate more books and computers. Otherwise the library named for the author of “Rip Van Winkle” might find that it, too, is years behind the times.

The city proposes a more complete and modern library that would be just 13 blocks away, currently the site of a carwash. This makes sense. So would upgrading the historic building that houses the present branch, perhaps as a community center--where that “neighborhood” feeling it now encourages would continue to be nurtured.