Libraries Await Needed Face Lifts : Renovations: Voters approved bonds to revamp 10 branches a year and a half ago, but construction has yet to begin.

A year and a half after Los Angeles voters approved a $53.4-million bond issue to renovate, enlarge or replace quake-threatened old libraries, workers have yet to break ground at any of 10 sites on the Westside.

But change is in the wind. Some architecturally forgettable buildings will be replaced, while others, whose Spanish lines and red tile roofs recall the early days of Los Angeles, will be renovated or put to other use.

A handful of architecturally notable libraries have been boarded up for more than a year: the John C. Fremont branch on Melrose Avenue, the Wilshire branch in Koreatown and the Memorial branch on Olympic Boulevard.

Staff and collections were moved to temporary quarters, keeping some old patrons and losing others while attracting new ones because of their newly visible locations on commercial streets.

Seven more branches continue to operate at their original locations, many of them hidden in residential neighborhoods that the Library Department would like to leave behind if only the buildings were not historical landmarks.

The slow pace of construction was to be expected, according to planners who are juggling 30 projects citywide, each of them different and some of them controversial, in the Los Angeles Public Library’s largest construction program since 1957.

“The average amount of time to open a branch, from the time of financing, is seven years, which we find to be absolutely unacceptable but evidently unavoidable,” said Robert G. Reagan, public relations director for the system.

But once the architects complete their drawings, new sites are acquired and neighborhood groups go on to other battles, planners hold out the promise of information depots that will serve readers well into the 21st Century.

“We’re still going to have tables and chairs, but we’re also going to have lounges and study carrels, audio-visual and computer stations, on-line data banks to answer people’s requests,” said Leslie Norbert, principal librarian for building projects.

Beyond that, she said, the branches will be outfitted with enough electrical outlets and communications lines to handle equipment that has not yet been invented.

All this gear will help libraries serve people who live outside the library’s immediate neighborhoods, as well as those who cannot afford home computers and modems, said John V. Richardson Jr., an associate professor of library and information sciences at UCLA.

“You could envision a scenario which is much more high-tech, with the computer and the screen, with somebody over your shoulder helping you capture the information,” he said.

He said the library as a quiet reading room ruled by “the old lady with a bun and Red Cross shoes going ‘shhh’ ” is already beginning to make way for information centers equipped with whirring printers and clicking computer keyboards.

Fontayne B. Holmes, assistant director of branches for the Los Angeles Public Library, has a similar vision.

“We still will have some quiet corners, but we see these new libraries as dynamic, open, welcoming and definitely noisier,” she said.

Total funding for the Los Angeles program is about $80 million, including federal grants and money from the city’s capital improvements budget. But even this may not be enough to complete all 30 projects, and the Library Department is seeking additional state funding, Reagan said.

Sixty-five years ago, it cost as little as $35,000 to build and outfit some of the older libraries like the Fremont branch, which opened its doors at 6121 Melrose Ave. in 1927. But times have changed.

The Brentwood branch on San Vicente Boulevard will be replaced with a new building that is budgeted at $2,342,000, more than a quarter of which is to be underwritten by a private donor and community fund raising.

Because some older branches have been listed as historic places by the city and federal governments, the Library Department’s options are limited. Some are to be renovated for use by other offices while others, like the Fremont branch, named after the 19th-Century explorer and organizer of the short-lived California Republic, will get a make over.

“The old building was charming, but we had no air conditioning and no carpeting and it had to be closed for seismic reasons,” said librarian Judy Katz.

Additionally, despite such touches as a fireplace and leaded glass windows, there were not enough electrical plugs to power new computers, and the baronial curved staircase allowed no handicapped access.

The staff and collection have been moved to temporary quarters at 736 N. La Brea Ave., where the commercial surroundings have attracted a new clientele, one that demands fewer books in Spanish and Korean and more in Russian and Armenian.

There has been an increased demand for magazines aimed at African-American readers, she said, and the concentration of Orthodox Jews makes for busy Fridays and quiet Saturdays.

While the site is temporary, it represents a change of thinking among city librarians, who once placed branches among the quiet streets and parks of residential neighborhoods.

Now, public librarians have learned that they have “everything in common with retail business when it comes to site selection,” according to a study submitted to the Board of Library Commissioners in 1985. “Libraries that are away from retail centers’ activity record much lower usage.”

The Fremont branch does not count patrons, but one indicator is the demand for books from other branches, which has gone up five-fold since the move to La Brea, Katz said.

The Wilshire branch, at 149 N. St. Andrews Place., closed since July, 1989, has been housed since that time in an old post office at 316 N. Western Ave.

“I think, for a temporary location, it’s working out quite well,” said librarian Gladys Cole, who found new readers from Latin America at the new location and many more teen-agers, “which is refreshing.”

Plans call for the renovation of the 1927 building, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

It features Italianate balustrades suitable for a serenade, and an entrance decorated with mythological beasts in the style of the Portal of Costanza at Italy’s Perugia Cathedral. No date has been set for construction.

Cole said she regretted the deletion of a parking lot from the plans, a decision that was made after protests from neighbors who were concerned that it might become a gang hangout.

Although they clearly allow libraries to serve more patrons, parking lots are often controversial, lamented Reagan.

Unlike jails and drug treatment centers, neighbors generally want a library on their block, he said, “but not the parking lot that comes with it.”

The Angeles Mesa branch at 2700 W. 52nd Street in Hyde Park, also listed in the National Register, is slated for renovation and expansion. The 4,750-square-foot building, made of unreinforced brick in 1928, will be reinforced and expanded to 6,000 square feet. It remains in operation, complete with window bars and the wrought-iron message, “Translate Reading into Living.”

The Brentwood branch, at 11820 San Vicente Blvd., is still open for business. Library officials are awaiting construction documents for the new, 10,200-square-foot building that will take the place of a cramped 1960 structure one-third the size.

The dramatic--and expensive--architecture of the new building includes a round reading room topped by a wide balcony and a large skylight.

The Memorial branch, in a park at 4625 W. Olympic Blvd., was built in 1930 to honor the World War I dead of Los Angeles High School. The school’s students continued to make up a large part of its patronage before it moved to temporary quarters.

The red-brick structure, whose architecture recalls the Gothic lines of the original high school building, has been closed since March, 1990, but workers are only now erecting a protective fence around the graffiti-marked site.

As of last week, no sign directed patrons to the new location at 4801 Wilshire Blvd., which is bringing in a new clientele of Hancock Park residents and Wilshire Boulevard office workers. But Reagan said Monday that signs have been posted.

Plans call for reinforcing the old building and expanding it from 7,217 square feet to 10,500 square feet, while gaining parking spaces by changing surrounding streets to diagonal parking.

The Robertson branch, a brick and stucco building that has been too small since it opened in 1953, is slated for replacement by a 10,500-square-foot structure. The old library continues to operate at 1719 S. Robertson Blvd.

In Venice, the library at 610 California Ave. has been the subject of debate for years. Built in 1930 on an oddly shaped lot away from major thoroughfares, it is now being reinforced for eventual use by other city offices.

Reagan noted that planning for a new Venice branch began in tandem with a new library in Wilmington. While the Wilmington library has been open for more than two years, the site for the Venice branch at 501 S. Venice Blvd. remains an empty patch of dirt, weeds, litter. A dusty sign reads, “New Home of the Venice Branch Library.”

The old building, with its lofty, wood-beamed ceiling, is listed on the National Register. Its successor is expected to double its size, now 5,581 square feet, if local residents, library planners and a newly hired architect can agree on a design.

The Washington Irving branch, built in 1926 at 1803 S. Arlington Ave., and listed on the National Register, has also been controversial. Neighborhood activists who want the library to stay where it is have gone so far as to hang banners over freeway bridges to dramatize their appeal.

The Library Department has in mind a site at Washington Boulevard and Bronson Avenue for a new, 9,000-square foot structure, but legal challenges are still pending and the Board of Library Commissioners is scheduled to debate the issue today. Councilman Nate Holden’s office is looking into other uses for the old building.

The library, with a long, low roof line reminiscent of buildings in Latin America and interior beams decorated in black and gold, is just under 4,000 square feet.

Irving, a 19th-Century writer whose works recall the bucolic origins of old New York, might have appreciated the sight on a recent morning of a white rooster crowing and scratching in the dirt of a yard across the street.

No decision has been made on the fate of the Westchester branch, a 1952 red-brick-and-stucco library located near a shopping mall, but planners say that it is too small, noisy and subject to cracking because it is located under the flight path to Los Angeles International Airport.

With Westchester also being served by another library at Loyola Village, one possibility is to tear down the existing site at 8946 Sepulveda Eastway and build a new one in the Playa Vista development in nearby Playa del Rey.

The 13,740-square foot regional library at the West Los Angeles Civic Center, built in 1956, where 25% of the collection is housed in closed stacks for lack of space, is also slated for renovation.

Changes are also afoot at these branches:

* Cahuenga, 4591 Santa Monica Blvd. Reinforcement, renovation and expansion of the unreinforced brick building, erected in 1916 in an Italian Renaissance style and suffering from the chronic complaint of Venetian palazzos--a frequently flooded basement. Temporary quarters opened at 4627 Santa Monica Blvd. in April, 1990.

* Felipe de Neve, 2820 W. 6th St. Reinforcement of the 1929 building in LaFayette Park and tripling its size to 12,500 square feet. A temporary facility was opened at 610 S. Rampart Blvd. in January, 1990.

* Pio Pico (Koreatown). Construction of a 10,5000 square foot building on the site of an old library at Connecticut Street and Oxford Avenue that was demolished in 1981 because of earthquake damage. Rented quarters were opened at 2631 W. Olympic Blvd. 10 years ago.

Westside Libraries

Passage of a $53.4 million revenue bond issue in 1989 allowed the Los Angeles Public Library system to start work on the renovation, replacement or construction from scratch of 29 libraries and one warehouse, 10 of them on the Westside. Here is an update on plans for Westside branches: Angeles Mesa: Structurally reinforce, renovate and expand the existing 4,750-square-foot building to 6,000 square feet. Library staff is seeking rental space for temporary quarters.

Brentwood: Erect a 10,200-square-foot building on the site of an existing 3,463-square-foot structure. Construction to begin in 1992.

J. C. Fremont:. Structurally reinforce and renovate the 4,276-square-foot building, expand it to 6,000 square feet and add a parking lot. Architectural contract under review. Temporary site operating at 736 N. La Brea Ave.

Memorial: Structurally reinforce, renovate and expand the existing 7,217-square-foot building to 10,500 square feet. Temporary site operating at 4801 Wilshire Blvd.

Robertson: A 10,500-square-foot building will replace the present 3,506-square-foot structure.

Venice: Existing 5,581-square-foot building will be used by other city offices; A new 10,500- square-foot branch will be built at 501 S. Venice Blvd. Construction to begin in 1992.

Washington Irving: If Board of Library Commissioners approves the site, a new, 9,000-square-foot branch will be built at Washington Boulevard and Bronson Avenue; future use of historic building still to be determined.

Westchester: Staff is investigating possible sites for a 10,500-square-foot branch to replace existing 5,918 square foot structure.

West Los Angeles: Remodel existing 13,740-square-foot facility.

Wilshire: Reinforce and renovate existing 6,258-square-foot building. Construction to begin at the end of 1992.