Member-only story
I spent a great portion of my childhood in the New York Public Library. It was my home away from home. I knew the Dewey Decimal system and there were certain numbers, such as history, where I could go deeper inside to specific areas with certainty.
I remember finding a book with an intriguing cover one day and devouring it; racing back to find three more by the same author! Imagine my amazement decades later when I learned the single first book was actually an adaptation of three movies!
I remember those foreboding librarians; not quite at tough as the nuns at Our Lady of Perpetual Torture, but close. The library was always quiet and I reveled in that. It was only a few years ago I was diagnosed with Asperger’s and that helps explain why, in the bustle and constant sound of the Bronx, including the Dyre Avenue Line running a few blocks behind our house, that I sought out the quiet and dimness of the library. Plus the books. I devoured books as a child.
NYPL recently posted a page of librarian tattoos. Here’s the page for more, but below is a sample of people you’d not want to run into in a dark alley unless you had all your late fines paid up.
Originally published at https://bobmayer.com.
