by Kelley Lindberg
 |
| Boston Public Library (Photo by Daniel Schwen, Wikimedia Commons) |
There are
libraries.
And then,
there are libraries.
A couple of
weeks ago, I found myself at a business meeting in Boston. (Okay, I didn’t just
wake up and find myself there. That sounds like the start of a thriller movie
starring Scarlett Johannson. I actually booked the flight and flew there on
purpose. Better? I’ll start over.)
A couple of
weeks ago, I found myself with 40 minutes to spare between the hotel breakfast
and the start of a business meeting in downtown Boston. I was determined to see
more of the city than just the inside of the hotel conference rooms, so I slung
my laptop bag over my shoulder, chose a revolving door at random, and stepped
out onto the sidewalk.
I had no map
and no desire to waste precious minutes bringing up a map app on my phone. This
was Boston. Every square inch of this city is historic. Culturally rich.
Vibrant. Alive with its own character, noisy with its own rhythm. I just began
walking.
Within a
couple of blocks, I was already in love. A mother and young daughter jogged by
in perfectly coordinated running togs (yes, togs), while business women
navigated cobblestone-like brick surfaces in high heels and sharply-dressed men
juggled their phones and coffee cups. Cars jostled for space and invented their
own driving rules in ways that would impress Sicilian drivers. Centuries-old
facades shouldered up against modern office buildings in companionable
acceptance.
 |
| Johnson Building (Photo by David Jones, Wikimedia Commons) |
And then a
huge, modern building with interesting arched windows rose up beside me. It
took up a whole block, it seemed, and I looked for a sign: “Boston Public
Library.” Perfect! I walked through the glass doors and a bank of metal
detectors, past a nondescript desk. Signs inside announced renovations. I stepped
into the main room and discovered…well, okay, a library. A normal library. A
low-ceilinged, white-walled, municipal library with shelves of DVDs crowding
out the shelves of books. Frankly, it was all very ordinary. I wasn’t sure what
I was expecting from the Boston Public Library (a bronze statue of Paul Revere
greeting me, perhaps?), but this wasn’t quite it.
Shoulders
slumping, I put my disappointment down to the “renovations” and trudged back
out of the library onto the sunlit sidewalk and kept walking towards a
promising-looking church on the next corner. As I reached the corner, however,
I noticed that the modern building had given way to a more traditional-looking building.
I read the inscription across the front and realized I had been wrong.
This was the Boston Public Library I’d
expected to see.
The Boston
Public Library system’s Central Library actually consists of two buildings: the
modernist Johnson building, which holds the main circulating collection, and the
original McKim building, which now houses the library’s research collection,
including many rare collections. Founded in 1852, the library’s original
building held 16,000 volumes. It quickly swelled beyond its seams, so a new
building, designed to hold 240,000 books, was opened in 1858. Two decades
later, even that building had grown too small. So the Renaissance-style McKim
building was commissioned. When it opened in 1895, it had the capacity for 2
million books. Two million! It must have seemed limitless. But limits are destined
to be stretched. Now the Boston Public Library holds 23 million items, making
it the second largest public library in the U.S., behind only the Library of
Congress (which holds nearly 35 million items). (You can read more about the Boston Public Library and its history here.)
I walked up
the broad steps into the granite building, through the ornate doors, and into a
foyer with lovely mosaic ceilings arching over me. From there I stepped into
the main hallway and caught my breath. Ahead of me was the grand entrance
stairway, with two huge marble lions standing guard beneath stunning murals.
I passed a
door to Bates Hall and froze. Through the door, I could see tall wooden shelves
filled with books, and long tables with green reading lamps throwing a small
circle of illumination at every seat. This was my classic image of what a
library—a real, honest-to-goodness library—should look like. It’s probably been
in a thousand movies, and that’s why it informs my mental image, but it stopped
me in my tracks to see a figment of my imagination take physical shape.
Out a window
on the other side of the hall, a courtyard beckoned—an open-air columned gallery
in the center of the building that brought to mind ancient Italian cloisters. A
fountain splashed, and tiny café tables and chairs offered a perfect spot for
some light reading.
In just a
few minutes, however, I was due back in the hotel conference room for my
meeting, so I only had time for a handful of photos.
And for standing
perfectly still in the hallway, listening to footsteps ring off marble floors
and high ceilings, breathing in the scent of books and old stone, and absorbing
the faint whispers of all those ideas and dreams that have been infused into that
building for nearly 120 years.
All those
stories. Both the written ones, and the human, living ones that have walked
through those doors, paused in the turmoil of their lives and struggles, and
lost themselves in the ideas pulsing from those written pages….All those
stories.
I only had a
handful of minutes to walk through downtown Boston, but somehow I found the
place I needed to be.
A library.
