This post is the twelfth in a series of excerpts serializing the book Feels Like Home.
Chapter 5
Post-Fire Memories: Rio Vista, Spring Street, etc. - part 2 by Bob Anderson - Librarian, Literature & Fiction Department
Eventually, the 1928 Title Insurance and Trust Building (then known as the Design Center), at 433 S. Spring Street, was secured as the temporary library. It was decided to have the Central Library staff do most of the reshelving of the collection, which was a huge project—like putting together the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.
While the building was being configured with book shelving, the Central Library staff began a new project—cleaning and inventorying all the freeze-dried, water-damaged books. At this point, a large crew of messenger clerks was hired to assist, since most of Central’s messenger clerks had moved on to other jobs post-fire. We did this rather unpleasant job in a building right next to the Design Center. For a number of months before the move, the library opened a “Popular Library” type facility called the Spring Street Book Stop on the first floor of the Design Center.
The library occupied most of the building, but there were still a few non-library offices on the upper floors. There was a large basement area, where a lot of History’s and Children’s Dept. “closed stacks” books were stored. The Children’s Department moved into the Book Stop space on one side of the first floor, while the other side had the film and video area, plus an information desk. Circulation was in the central lobby. Like many buildings of the 1920s, including Central Library, the second floor was the main floor of the Design Center, with high ceilings, elaborate décor, etc. History and Art had their public areas on that floor, along with Rare Books. Business and the Periodicals Room were on the third floor, while Science was on 4 and Social Science on 5. Literature and International Languages shared the sixth floor, with our closed stacks on the seventh. These floors were smaller than the ones below, because there was also a fairly good-sized auditorium on the sixth floor, which we used for order meetings and other library functions. Some of the Social Science collection was also on the ninth floor.
Leslie Nordby was in charge of the move. Once again, we had many committees and sub-committees, and we spent a lot of time counting shelves, counting catalog drawers, figuring out where various call numbers would be shelved. We started at the bottom of the building and worked our way up, so Literature and Languages were last to be shelved. And of course, nothing worked out exactly as planned, and we spent lots of time unpacking books, breaking down boxes, shifting, reshifting, and reshifting again and again. In fact, we never did get everything shelved in Literature—there simply was not enough room. Eventually, some of our books went to the ninth floor and the basement, so we were scattered over four floors, and stack requests could take a LONG time! Sadly, we had to discard some of those gift books we’d spent so much time processing in order to get everything on the shelves—many months after we’d officially opened. Doing the heavy work of moving pallets up and down the freight elevator was a company called Crest Movers, which tended to employ a lot of fairly shady characters as day labor, so that made for an interesting experience as well.
Finally, we were ready to open (in April 1989). I recall the opening words of Helene’s theme song for this era (adapted from Cole Porter) were:
“We open on Spring Street, we’ve played Rio Vista. I’m tellin’ ya, sista, lots of laughs in that show! We next got to clean up those grungy, scrungy volumes, then inventory, what a story, then we open again—where? On Spring Street!”
We had an automated catalog for the first time, put together with all those inventory cards, though of course it was very primitive by today’s standards and had no indication of number of copies, ref. or circ., etc.
I forgot to mention that there was also a roof-top restaurant, the Board Room, which was actually quite elegant (and not very well used, other than by library staff; it eventually closed while we were there). It even had a piano player who would play a lot of old (think 1930s and 1940s) standards. I just read that the Title Insurance and Trust building is reopening as office space later this year—again with a rooftop restaurant!
About the move back to Central I have less to say. That move was done by professional movers. But we did have to do a lot of calculating about which books would go to which shelves. I still have some of the figures I did, comparing how many shelves various call numbers and fiction letters had on Spring Street and how many they would have in the new building. The Spring Street library closed in June, and most of the staff went to branches for the summer. A small group (less than ten, I think) stayed behind to oversee the work of the movers and answer any questions they had. Once the books got shelved, they were all barcoded by clerks.
The original plan was for all of us to move in several weeks before opening, during which time we would have orientations, training, be able to unpack and arrange our offices, etc. But it turned out that the builders (Tutor-Saliba) took longer than expected, and the certificate of occupancy didn’t come through until about three days before the grand opening. In fact Tutor never did quite finish up—which is why, among other things, the desk lamps at the Literature Desk never had electric lights put in them!
The early nineties had been a very difficult time financially, and Central Library (and LAPL as a whole) lost many staff positions during those years on Spring Street. We often remarked that if the economy had been in that kind of shape at the time of the fire, the city might not have been so willing to rebuild Central and keep a staff of librarians who were doing some rather non-librarian jobs over a period of several years. And in 1993 the city budget was still in serious trouble; it would take several more years before things started (at least for a while) to look better. I came across a song lyric that I wrote (inspired by Helene) that pretty much sums up this era:
June is moving time at Spring Street!
We’re leaving these overcrowded halls /where the air conditioning’s shut off /and the telephones all cut off and the patrons overdose in toilet stalls. June is moving time at Spring Street! The books’ll go flying out the door. We’ll reopen in October, but there’s not a lot of hope for extra hours or free parking for the poor...because we’re broke! Broke, broke, broke! L.A.’s budget’s up in smoke!
Robert Anderson became a librarian in what was then the Fiction Department of Los Angeles Public Library in 1980. In 1991 he was selected as Fiction Subject Specialist for the Literature and Fiction Department and has held that position since then. He was, rather ironically, working on a weeding project in the Central Library closed stacks on the day of the 1986 fire, and he considers the subsequent seven years that ended in the Grand Reopening to be the most traumatic but also the most transforming and inspiring of his life and career.
Feels Like Home: Reflections on Central Library: Photographs From the Collection of Los Angeles Public Library (2018) is a tribute to Central Library and follows the history from its origins as a mere idea to its phoenix-like reopening in 1993. Published by Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library, it features both researched historical accounts and first-person remembrances. The book was edited by Christina Rice, Senior Librarian of the LAPL Photo Collection, and Literature Librarians Sheryn Morris and James Sherman.The book can be purchased through the Library Foundation of Los Angeles Bookstore.