Today, the library is like a fading Hollywood actress: her beauty impaired by a frail body, but her spirit vibrant as ever. Paint is peeling, pipes are leaking, windows don't open, radiators are broken. The 20-year-old carpet in the children's section is so rumpled that children trip on it. The water bubblers are shut off while officials await results of lead testing. The air conditioning leaks. Toilet doors don't close properly. The basement floods periodically because of sewer backups in the street.
Even so, Mount Pleasant is not on the city's new renovation list. Despite its flaws, it is less decrepit than others in the system.
Kindergarteners from Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Charter School listen as English teacher Imogene Love reads to them.
(Ryan Anson - For The Washington Post)
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Upgrades Set At Some Sites
After decades of neglect, the city is rebuilding four of its most decrepit neighborhood libraries: Anacostia, Benning, Tenley-Friendship and Watha T. Daniel/Shaw. They were selected for replacement because they had the most "deferred maintenance" among the city's 21 neighborhood libraries, according to Monica Lewis, library spokeswoman. The Deanwood kiosk, a one-room structure at 4215 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave. NE, will also be replaced by space in the new Marshall Heights government center.
Library officials hope to rebuild the entire system over the next 10 years, but there are no separate plans to renovate the Mount Pleasant Branch Library.
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"If you're going to open a library, you should at least have a working bathroom," says Ethiopian-born Yacob, 48, who brings her daughters here because it is a quieter place to study than home. "If the government is really concerned about leaving no child behind, this is one program they shouldn't cut."
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) got $750,000 allocated for improvements at the library in the 2005 city budget. But Kardy says the building needs structural renovations estimated at $5 million to put things right.
She struggles to describe the conditions under which her librarians and clients labor. " 'Third World' kind of leaps to mind," she says philosophically. "I mean . . . there's just so much stuff that needs to be done and so little resources to do it with."
Many Needs
At 9:25 a.m. on a recent Friday, four people wait at the front door for the library to open at 9:30 so they can use its two Internet-linked computers. The line for the computers forms fast. Since each person may stay online for an hour, the average wait for a computer is 2 1/2 hours, Kardy says.
In the upstairs children's section, favorites such as Captain Underpants and Horrible Harry are set out to attract young readers. "This is like a salad bar, and they loiter here," says Anne Thacher, a part-time children's librarian.
A typewritten sign advertises "baby book club, an interactive story-time session for infants and toddlers." Thacher says that many parents nowadays "want programs for babies. They want to reach them even in the womb."
The changing face of the neighborhood, she adds, is evident in the growing numbers of nannies who bring their charges to the library. As she speaks, Jenna Landy's third-grade class from the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom public charter school pounded up the stairs.
"It's a good place to come because they can find chapter books, comic books, picture books, magazines," Landy says. "And they are so nice here, the librarians."
Nicaraguan-born Maria Nino, the reference librarian, has been at the library for 10 years. She says that people frequently ask her for information on how to get U.S. citizenship, how to find a job and how to learn English. They also want books "about 9/11, how it happened," as well as information on Islam, she adds.
Her Spanish is an asset for the library, set in a heavily Hispanic part of town. One day last week, an elderly Latino woman who'd broken her arm asked Nino to help her fill in her voter registration form. When she left, a Spanish-speaking man asked Nino for a copy of "The Iliad," which his son needed for school.
Both Nino and Thacher complain about "the mess" they often find at the library's entrance left by vagrants who sleep there at night: newspapers, clothes, boxes, human excrement and food. Sometimes, when the custodian isn't around, the librarians have to clean it up. "You can't be proud and say, 'That's not my job,' " says Thacher.
Wearing a backward baseball cap, Jose Hernandez approaches librarian Virginia Artist and hands her a piece of white paper that says "White Teeth by Zadie Smith." Hernandez, 25, who comes from El Salvador and is a bakery deliveryman, tells Artist that he needs the book for an English class.
