L.A.’s Central Library

* We attended the Los Angeles Central Library open house (Oct. 4). Because of time restraints, we decided not to wait in the long line to go inside the building. We walked around the area and were thrilled to see the rebirth of Los Angeles--an exciting visual civic center that competes with other great cities of the world.

We saw buildings of glass, stone, marble--we saw fountains, art sculpture, old and new architecture, tall and small buildings. We even took a round-trip ride on the new Metro from 7th Street to Union Station and back, marveling that this beautiful, clean, safe subway was in our city.

We will go back to the Downtown library when there are no crowds and we have a lot of time to explore the many treasures there and enjoy the architecture inside as we did on the outside. We will use our library card to check out books. We will also try some of the marvelous restaurants that we saw on our walking tour.

Thank you to the many people in our city who stood behind the restoration of the Central Library.

SANDRA and SID LAMPERT

Studio City

* Your coverage of the reopening of the Central Library seemed purely architectural and institutional (“Chapter and Verse,” Oct. 1). Are there no people who work in that library except for the director? Is the Central Library truly a self-serve operation? If not, then what of the workers therein?

NASTASSJA CHERNOFF

Los Feliz

* For those people who spend billions of dollars in space, it’s unfair for space to get more credit than libraries. The latter shouldn’t be the ones that should pay the price by being closed down, or have reduced open hours.

MARGARITA CONTRERAS

Los Angeles