Bay Ridge #28, 12/15/06

I'm going to go to every public library in Brooklyn. Why, you may ask? And more importantly, why should I care? Unfortunately, I can't answer the second question for you, so I'll just stick with the first.

Since I still have no full time job, and because I like to read and go places, I’ve decided to travel to every library in Brooklyn, and get at least one book out from each one. And then read the books! The genesis for this idea comes from when I was living in Saint Paul, and I realized that just because I worked at a bookstore didn’t mean I had to keep buying every book I wanted to read. Plus, you know, saving money is nice. Saint Paul had some great libraries, like the nice, small town vibe of the Highland Park branch, and the big fancy Central Library. So, I started spending lots of time in them, and it was an excuse to get out of the house on the quiet days, and I ended up reading tons of awesome books and not having as much stuff to move when I came back to New York, which was great.

Being back in Brooklyn, and knowing that I didn’t know much about the neighborhoods except for Park Slope and Williamsburg (not to mention the unemployment thing), I decided to go to EVERY library in the whole Brooklyn Public Library system.

This blog is a little overdue, because I’ve already been to twelve of them. In the process I’ve read some great books, from El Borbah to a few different Hunter S. Thompson titles (I am now thinking of learning how to ride a motorcycle due to the Hell’s Angels book…) to a weird retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by a contemporary Russian novelist, to one of my new favorites(which was also made into a great Russian movie recently), Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.

But, despite this promising start, I recently decided that I need to start over. No one will ever believe that I’ve done this, I realized. Despite my blabbing on and on about it to family and friends till they just can’t take it anymore, and the “proof” in the form of all the library books that I’ve been lugging around and reading in lieu of all human contact, something was missing. Pictures! I’m shitty at taking them, but I won’t let that stop me; I’m gonna get at least one pic of each library, which means going to some that I’ve already been to, but what the hell. I have plenty of time on my hands, and this seems like a constructive enough way to spend it.

I have an unlimited metrocard (because otherwise I would go crazy), so I have no problem getting to the furthest reaches of the borough. Also, I just recently replaced my bike’s tires and bought a lock, so that’s always an option as well. And that is how I went to what has become the first library on my new photo tour of the Brooklyn Public Libraries, the Bay Ridge Branch.

Branch: Bay Ridge
Location: 7223 Ridge Blvd. at 73rd St.
Transport: bicycle
Books: Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis; The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Date: Friday, December 15, 2006

This was definitely a fun trip. Biking though Sunset Park (the neighborhood, not the park) at sunset is really gorgeous. I went down 5th avenue for the most part, and dodging the buses, cars, and people kind of sucked, but it also became like a game. Can I ride on the center line without dying? Should I jump up on the sidewalk to dodge a bit of traffic, even though for the most part I think sidewalk bikers are the lowest of the low? Are there cars coming, or can I run yet another red light? Good times.

As for the books, I hadn’t read any history in forever, and this Founding Brothers was always a popular one back at the B&N in Minnesota. Plus it won the Pulitzer, so I guess that’s worth something. And for whatever reason I was jonesing for something on the founding fathers, and 1776 is usually a hardcover in the libraries, so here we are.

The Plot Against America I’ve been meaning to read for a long time, because the idea of an alternate history with a more nazified America intrigued me (not least because it is pertinent today), and because I have heard that Philip Roth is a good writer, but I’ve never bothered to read anything he wrote before. So we’ll see how that one is.

I guess I’ll talk about how much I liked the books in the following entries, which is a bit of an odd format but seems like the only way to do it, since I don’t want to wait until I’ve finished reading them to write about the library.

As far as the library itself, it was dark when I got there, so it was very harshly lit by fluorescent lights. It’s very large and open, and was full of children and adults alike, even though it was closing in only an hour or so. It was well laid out for the most part, though finding the non-fiction was a bit tricky – it’s mostly all against the back wall, behind other, more clearly marked sections. The librarians were nice, though I did have to wait halfway through the transaction for one to get a roll of paper to replace the OTHER one’s roll. Get it yourself, bitch! But yeah, good library, good selection, definitely nicer staff than some I’ve been to.

Some pictures:



As you can see, my skills in this area leave much to be desired. I should also probably take these pics during the day. Oh well.







So, that's what it looks like! For the full sized images just click on those l'il ones.

I just want to end the entry with a comment on amazon.com. I don’t support them, necessarily; I personally try to go to local independent bookstores when I do buy books, and libraries in general. Since I can’t link to information about the books at either of those places, I link to their amazon pages. It isn’t an endorsement, just a way for people to read more about the books and see what other people thought of them. No one will read this anyway, but I’d feel like a jerk if I thought somebody did and then thought I was amazon.com’s number one fan or something. Well, that’s it for the first entry, hope somebody liked it/read it!

Oh, and a special thanks goes out to everyone who has listened to me talk about this wacky idea and feigned/expressed interest, and an EXTRA special thanks to Priscilla, who suggested writing about it in the first place, and to Natalie, who facilitated said connection, and who is almost always supportive of the crazy ideas I have.