Breakfast in Scarborough

In search of my 74th Toronto Public Library, I took the subway to Keele station and then walked north along Keele until I discovered Annette Street. After turning left, it wasn’t long before I spotted the solid classical form of Annette Street Library, which opened one hundred years ago. Situated beside a Masonic Temple and across from a church building that was for sale, Annette Street branch shared the Edwardian flair of Yorkville Library (1907). The year of Annette Street Library’s construction, 1908, was etched in stone above a grand entrance flanked by two ramps. Two solid Corinthian columns framed the door, adding drama to the mere act of ascending the stone steps into the building. My library, my temple!

Initially descending into the basement level, I came upon an office devoted to the West Junction Historical Society and its archives. The office was closed, but I was able to peer into a lovely darkened room that was waiting for the next day’s scholars to turn up with their notebooks, questions, and visions of the past. This lower level also contained two community rooms concealed behind massive wooden doors with extra-wide frames.

Retracing my steps to the lobby, I went up a short curving staircase to the main level. I liked the heightened suspense created by delaying immediate entry to the library; the staircase provided a feeling of physical elevation, of having to work a little harder and reach a little higher to achieve access to the books. (However, the elevator was also an option). At the top of the steps, the check-out desk was directly in front of me. Getting my visual bearings, I was immediately awestruck by the luxuriously high ceilings that contained cornices decorated with carved ferns. Wow! What elegant mouldings! What classy hanging lamps with glass globes!

A century-old “Edison Home Phonograph” rested in the gap between the wall behind the checkout area and shelves of children’s books behind it. Moving closer to study the historical object, I marvelled at the way such a thin tube supported the giant unfurled cornucopia of a speaker. To the left side of the checkout station (and behind it) was the children’s wing. Filled with a wide variety of books, DVD’s, French materials, and music, this part of the library looked like a well-organized educational playroom that achievement-oriented parents had provided for their many kids. For instance, there was an earnest poster next to shelves of children’s non-fiction which showed the different trees found in Ontario’s Forest Regions: White Birch, Trembling Aspen, Sugar Maple, Sassafras, Tulip Tree, and Eastern White Pine. Next to a collection of CD-Roms (including one on dinosaurs) sat a stuffed Barney. Barney’s fur was mostly reddish purple, but his tummy was green and his six toes yellow. Far above Barney’s head were two train sets facing off on a narrow ledge, a fitting tribute to local history, as West Toronto Junction “began as a Canadian Pacific Railway Stop” (as explained by a sign on the other side of the library).

Before I explored the remainder of the building, I paused at a table to get a greater sense of the atmosphere. It was fairly quiet on the Wednesday afternoon that I visited. Most of the windows were open on that glorious May day, making this library the perfect oasis to savour the end of a long winter. Eggshell-white walls complemented the pearly natural light which filled the interior, making the place calm, clean, open, and airy. All that was missing was a nineteenth-century gentlewoman playing the pianoforte in an Empire gown while her listeners reclined in states of polite repose.

Imaginary pianofortes are well and good, but the library certainly had its practical side. When I got up to investigate the west wing, I noticed a special display of books for job-seekers. (I read in Margaret Penman’s A Century of Service: Toronto Public Library 1883-1983 that the Toronto libraries performed a similar function in the 1930’s, providing a haven for the unemployed and books on topics such as crafts, welding, sales and agriculture (43)). The ESL section was solid, as was the large collection of French books. The west wing also featured a Local History section, which contained titles like Mayors of Toronto and Not a One Horse Town. Supporting the historical theme, portraits of the first five mayors of West Toronto Junction (in office from 1889 to 1898) presided high on a wall near the check-out desk, a quintet of very purposeful-looking gentlemen. And a nearby plaque commemorated the fact that Annette Street branch (formerly Western Branch) was built with funding from Andrew Carnegie and the Public Library Board of the City of West Toronto.

Of Annette Street Library’s many charms, one last feature was a pleasing study area that dipped about two feet below the main floor. I found this carpeted depression to be a great spot to daydream while looking out onto Annette Street. Although chairs were available, one relaxed patron was sitting on the floor beside the window studying the newspaper. I felt fortunate to just sit there while a quiet contentment seemed to fill the sunny room.

Tall pylons and chimney stacks near Bathurst and Finch provided the backdrop to Centennial Library, which stood in front of a recreational facility called Herbert H. Carnegie Centennial Centre. Beside the library’s entrance was a quirky sculpture by Ron Baird which Stewart described as an “oyster on legs.” After appreciating the sculpture’s oysteriness for a few moments, we entered a large square room with a central dividing wall that didn’t completely bisect the room’s entire width.

Windows comprised the majority of the library’s southern, street-facing wall, and plenty of reading chairs and tables invited patrons to take advantage of this open and well-illuminated space. On the Saturday that we visited Centennial, every possible reading perch was occupied by readers concentrating on their thoughts, dreams, and lessons. These studious people sparkled like jewels in a treasure chest of books, and the library walls in pastel violet created the ideal foil for them to shine. To encourage the polishing of brilliance were books in French, Hebrew, Russian, Tagalog, and English-learning texts. For those in search of lighter reading, the Romance section had “Desert Ice Daddy” and “The Cowboy Wants a Baby.” And for newcomers looking for social connections, a notice board provided details about North York Community House’s Host Program.

The Children’s Area was on the west side of the central dividing wall and boasted a colourful spring scene made from paper. A long tree branch stretched across part of the west wall and presented its cherry blossoms to the viewer. A paper plate drenched in yellow paint successfully represented the sun, while the branch arched over some tulips, a deer, and a large mushroom with a yellow bird sheltering under its eave.

I really enjoyed Centennial’s unpretentious cheeriness; it struck me as a down-to-earth branch that has not been taken for granted by its local patrons. Tucking newly borrowed books and CD’s in bags, we returned to our Honda parked in the shadow of an enormous Hydro pylon. And that was the end of library visit number seventy-three!

On a visit to Hillcrest branch near Leslie Street and Steeles last month, I was impressed by how enthusiastically it celebrated Easter. The lobby showcased a holiday display on three shelves behind a glass screen. Nests blessed with eggs rested near stuffed toy rabbits which were kitted out with straw hats and carrot accessories. One bunny projected pastel cool with his pink spectacles and a purple felt hat that had holes for his ears to flop through. Perhaps the result of chomping on too many fake carrots, one of his teeth was hanging out quite far from his mouth. Nearby, some more rabbits were performing the splits, wielding a wheelbarrow, and gardening with a shovel. Framing the dynamic mammals, two large Easter baskets were overflowing with chicks, eggs, grass, lilies, and yet more bunnies. Plastic grass carpeted the flat spaces between Easter objects, including a tree stand adorned with painted wooden eggs, a fuzzy purple chick and one white goose.

Moving into the library proper, I surveyed the large square room of this pleasant neighbourhood branch. Hillcrest’s size, layout, and atmosphere was very similar to Pleasant View, Elmbrook Park, and Goldhawk Park branches. In addition to a comprehensive selection of fiction and non-fiction, Hillcrest Library had a solid ESL section, from which I selected an abridged reader about The Beatles for my class. It also had a sizable French and Chinese collection. In the northeast corner of the room, a window bench invited sun-loving readers to lounge for a spell by the broad windows. And one last distinctive detail was a funky satellite mobile which dangled from the ceiling near the checkout desk. The satellite was shaped like a jack (as in the jacks you pick up between bounces of a ball), and its many limbs came in purple, green, yellow, blue, and pink. Purple balls jutted from the ends of each jack-limb. Gaping at this psychedelic satellite was an excellent distraction from waiting in line, and in a cosmic second I was (temporarily) a book and DVD richer.

Not long before Saint Patrick’s Day, I visited Eatonville Library, a large branch at the intersection of Burnhamthorpe and Highway 427. Near the check out desk was a holiday display strewn with paper shamrocks that nestled between upright books by Roddy Doyle and Maeve Binchey as well as Irish Dancing videos. Though the building was big, there wasn’t much space to put my hands on my hips and kick, for Eatonville was packed with busy patrons. On that Saturday afternoon, it was much more crowded than other southwest Toronto branches like Elmbrook Park, Humber Bay, New Toronto, and Alderwood.

Oringinally built in 1967, Eatonville was reconstucted in 2000, but so much heavy use seemed to have faded its millennial shininess. I was getting a more a gritty, urban vibe from this branch, as its densely-packed multicultural intensity reminded me of branches closer to my home in Scarborough, such as Fairview and Bridlewood. Behind a couple of turnable carrels of paperback fiction, a man prayed on his knees, rising and then returning to rest his forehead on the floor again and again. Moreover, reading material for Eatonville patrons in Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, and Spanish reflected the multilingual richness that was also strikingly alive in branches such as Malvern, Agincourt, North York Central, S. Walter Stewart, Cedarbrae, McGregor, Riverdale, Parkdale, and Gerrard/Ashdale.

Eatonville’s children’s section was vast, well-stocked, and pleasant, but graffiti carved into the wooden window bench provided more urban flavour than the library was probably hoping for. Even the stuffed animals that lined two high shelves had seen better days; many of them were stained with magic marker, fur-tattered, and ready for retirement. Nevertheless, the sheer volume of the stuffed assembly was impressive: a frog lying on his back, a witch with green hair, a sun, two octopus cousins, a bunny, a duck, a blue and green bumblebee, a blue dog, a burgandy elephant, a clown, an electric-lime-green bear, a black hen, and a panda bear in a blue snow suit. In the middle of the section was a purple cardboard castle with Tinkerbell perched on a turret decorated with real cobwebs.

As I waited in a long line to check out a travel DVD, I gazed up at the high ceiling and appreciated the breathing room it inspired. Walking back to the car, I admired the tall grasses planted around the perimeter of the building, the exterior of which looked like a silver oceanliner beached at the highway’s edge. I wished all the readers inside happy sailing!