Quake-Damaged Redondo Library May Be Shut 2 Years

Redondo Beach’s main library, shut down last week because of earthquake damage, may not reopen for two years or more, and readers will have to rely on the city’s North Redondo Beach branch for library services, city officials said this week.

“The damage to the building is much more severe than we thought,” said City Engineer Ken Montgomery, noting that the 5.8 Sierra Madre earthquake late last month left the 61-year-old library so seriously shaken that several of the brick columns supporting the building’s west side were cracked completely through.

City officials have known for at least two years that the landmark library, overlooking the ocean in Veterans Park, was vulnerable to collapse in a major earthquake. A two-year seismic retrofitting project was due to begin next year, and the City Council this spring had approved construction of a new main library next door to City Hall.

Several groups, meanwhile, are already vying for use of the Veterans Park building when it reopens in 1994, including a senior citizens organization and the local historical society. The City Council, however, has refused to rule out the possibility of reopening the building as a branch library or reading room.

Montgomery said the damage to the library was not discovered until several days after the quake, which was felt only mildly in the South Bay. The library was the only local municipal building to sustain major damage.

City workers will begin moving the main library’s 100,000 volumes out of the building this week, and the City Council will decide Tuesday how to best continue serving library patrons on the city’s south side.

Meanwhile, said Library Director Shari Petresky, “the north branch library has become the city’s main library, at least for the moment.”

Petresky said the north branch, at 2000 Artesia Blvd., has extended its operating hours to accommodate readers citywide. Normally closed until noon, the branch will now be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Petresky said.

Books borrowed from the main library can be returned at the north branch or at a remote book drop on Catalina Avenue near the Esplanade.