Wednesday, June 24, 2009

groovy old books!


yeah, i love groovy old books. i remember the public library in my hometown before they moved into the hulking, weird, antiseptic new building. one of my favorite places to scope on groovy older paperback books was in the several vertical rotating 'Young Adults' section, which was downstairs. you walked down this hall from the main desk, and you were at the top of a groovy unwalled staircase, at the top of like, a thirty-five foot drop, looking down onto a glorious enormous pit of people and seating and books. that was probably my favorite view in that place; looking down from that staircase on a rainy day, with the skies gray and drizzly through the windows to the left of the checkout desk. you could always see plants there, growing in some kind of alleyway-slash-terrarium. there, in those young adult racks, you could find the goriest ghost stories, the most compelling 'afterschool-special'-fied books about teenagers with problems, all the music 'fan books,' and other cool novels. that was also where all the holy and hilarious MAD digests were kept. man, it sucks-serious that that building doesn't exist anymore. i only hope the majority of those books eventually landed in the hands of those that appreciated them. man, i miss those days... and i really, really, really miss that building.
(click to enlarge)

2 comments:

lucynell2 said...

I wish I had a dime for everytime I went up and down those stairs leading into that pit. (The magazine and microfiche area was right at the bottom of those stairs.) That library was the best, best, best. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back there right now.

lucynell2 said...

I wish you would you call me right now. If you're up. 610 number...