The Carnegie Library

Old library building in Newport

My parents weren't big library goers.  Despite being an avid reader, my mom still can't even tell you where the library is.  So I pretty much discovered them on my own.  A library is a miracle of thought no matter whether it's a bookmobile or a closet in a prison or the NY Public Library.  A place where you can go and read any book without charge.  Even take it home and sip tea while you do.

I have had a long-standing love affair with any number of libraries.  Just to walk through the door of a library causes euphoria.  When I feel a little off kilter, it's always the library that sorts me out and brings me home.

My favorite was the Carnegie Library in Newport (4th and Monmouth).  Not that new one by Newport HS - soulless that.  No this one was everything a library should be.  Constructed when buildings were art in 1899 with funding from Andrew Carnegie.  This building was THE library for 100 years

I loved this building with its polished marble floors that were like glass, always cool underfoot even in summer when I slid off my flipflops and padded barefoot from my window seat to the stacks and back.  The grand staircase with its wooden balustrade polished by thousands of hands as they slid down its length.  The floor to ceiling windows were majestical.  And the light....ah the light was positively swoon worthy.  The whole place bespoke grace and elegance - the kind that isn't readily found much anymore.

Through the deeply shadowed stacks prowled dragons.  Doorways led to Narnia, Waverly, a Little House in the Big Woods, the den of thieves, Hobbiton.  Doors opened onto the whole world from there.  And always they led safely back again.

I know it's been 'repurposed'.  But I hate that it isn't available to me anymore to just meander around and see where I might land on a cold Saturday in March such as today.  I miss my window seat.  I like to imagine that behind those doors everything is just as I left it the last time I was there.