Them Ol' Public Library Blues

Well, they closed down the Waverly Branch of the Belmont Public Library this weekend.

Actually, they did it a while back. But they opened it this weekend for a final three-day book sale. I showed up at the opening of the sale mostly just to take a look around a the place that that fascinated, baffled, and scared me as a youth. As I was forbidden to cross streets, it was first place I could enter on my own because it was on my block. There were no other public buildings or stores, unless you count the dentist and the funeral home.

I wanted to take a look to see if any of the books I remembered from my youth were still there. If they were, they were soon dumped into paper bags by other shoppers. (The books were $1.50 each or $3.00 a bag.)

It was always a beautiful place, small but just what you want a library to be like. It was a carved out of the charming brick firehouse ( a small addition the original building was made to make a little extra room; you can see it by the slightly different bricks used). The firehouse used to be a schoolhouse, the woman presiding over the sale told me. The firemen had been petitioning for a new firehouse ever since they moved in over 80 years ago, she joked. The new firehouse will be built 1/2 the way between Waverly and Cushing Square. The old firehouse will be turned into condos, of course.

After I popped in, I visited my father for a few hours, then stopped in again before I grabbed a bus home, five minutes before they closed shop. To my surprise, there was a prominently displayed best-seller "The Price of Loyalty" about disgruntled Ex-Bush administration official Paul O'Neil, untouched by the ladies with paper bags. I bought it.

There were still people there when I left, but nobody was coming in and the library woman was announcing the sale was over.

I think I may be the last person ever to go into the Waverly Branch library to get a book.