Breakfast in Scarborough

Maria A. Shchuka Library seemed right at home in the thick of busy street life at the intersection of Eglinton Avenue West and Northcliffe Boulevard. As I sat beside Stewart in front of tall windows facing Eglinton Avenue, I watched the hectic swirl of traffic, transient groups of bus passengers, and passing pedestrians. I wondered if the Portuguese bakery across the street sold custard tarts and then turned my attention to the continuous bench that hugged the west and north walls.

Wanting to see how far the bench extended, I left my armchair to survey the main level. In the northeast corner was an imaginative children’s area with unconventional furniture. The small tables were neither round nor square; instead, they looked like amoebas gently shaped into blobby flowers (with chairs to match).

At floor level, I admired a quirky rocking-lounger as well as the lowest bookshelves I’ve ever seen. They actually resembled cubbyholes more than shelves, as they were cleverly tucked under the window bench on the west wall. This thoughtful arrangement placed small picture books within easy reach of toddlers.

Also attractive to Maria Shchuka’s youngest patrons but much more inaccessible was a rattle-tailed dragon with a peekaboo mirror on one foot and a flower pocket on the other. Custom-made to fit in the pocket, a soft daisy dangled from the dragon by a braid. Although this plush creature had wings, its legs were shackled by clear plastic restraints which were bolted to the top of a free-standing bookshelf.

Feeling sorry for the dragon’s restricted life, I walked up to the second floor. The shades had been drawn against the late afternoon sun, so everything looked more gray and silvery than downstairs. Computers lined two sides of a small atrium, making it difficult to peer all the way down into the reception area below. Maybe the designers were worried about pranksters dropping paperballs on people from on high.

Though Maria A. Shchuka stopped being Head Librarian in 1996, she might have shaken her finger at mischievous types and shooed them into the spacious Learning Centre or the Adult Literacy Room. However, with so much to study at this branch — the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection plus books in Chinese, Italian, Turkish, Portugese, Tagalog, Spanish, Russian, and Vietnamese — who could complain that boredom had driven them to lob paper missiles over the atrium?

Trowell Avenue ranks high on my list of pleasing street names, and the charm of Evelyn Gregory Library lived up to its address. A stand-alone building with a low roof, big trees on the lawn, and a large rock beside a picnic bench near the entrance, this branch was well-integrated into its residential surroundings. It looked like just another house on the block.

Completed in 1968, Evelyn Gregory’s interior also conveyed a domestic vibe. Its central checkout area had a warm brick wall behind it, which complemented the low ceiling and informal atmosphere.

To the left of the staff’s friendly bailiwick was the teens and children’s zone. The south wall of this section contained a large window, its prospect showing a square of dirt and its group of trees, greenish light pushing through the canopy. While I was gazing out the window, a ghoulish scream made me jump. I swiveled to my left and saw a grayish-green zombie face on a computer screen. Embarrassed by the attention, a teenager in a headscarf hastily turned down the volume of the scream.

Composure restored, I walked to the west wall to study a mural which was most likely painted during the childhood of the sheepish horror-fan’s parents. Against a pale blue background, kids were sledding, skating, building sand castles, playing leapfrog, and blowing bubbles. Many of them had long helmet hair like characters in Skooby Doo cartoons.

The east side of the library didn’t have any murals, but there were inviting carpeted ledges that jutted out from the base of two sets of wide windows. The ledge was too narrow to be an out-and-out bench, but there was just enough room to provide a purchase for patrons determined to perch. One young reader had snagged the coveted corner where the two ledges met to form a right angle. This spot afforded a more secure surface from which to lean backwards against the warm glass and fall into the pages of a book.

Tall shelves near the prime reading corner were filled with non-fiction materials, including Spanish, Portugese, and ESL offerings. A few shelves away, Evelyn Gregory’s DVD collection was especially robust, so Stewart and I were both able to find a movie we liked for a double-feature later that evening. I checked out Pineapple Express and The Secret Life of Bees and then we returned to the shaded sidewalks of Trowell Avenue.

A striking mural stopped me in my tracks as I walked through a side passageway to the entrance of Mount Dennis Library. I saw a man and a woman facing each other in the middle of a green field. A community of daffodils gathered in the foreground, and two trees framed the scene, transforming actual pillars into brown trunks. Painted wooden creatures had been riveted to the surface of the mural, creating a bulky applique effect. The riveted animals included a seagull, a cardinal, a raccoon looking at a ladybug, a wolfish dog, a bee hive on a branch, and a chipmunk (also on a branch). Brightly painted bees, ladybugs, and a butterfly added even more character to the picture.

After I passed through one of the entrance doorways, I noticed a curious detail on the vertical jamb between the two doors. Someone had painted a giraffe’s head near the top of the jamb, its ears and horns jutting into the lintel. Yellow and orange dots cascaded down the length of the jamb, suggesting a long neck. I really liked how the artist had seen a giraffe in the shape of an ordinary door jamb because it reminded me to look for whimsy in the day-to-day.

The main floor of Mount Dennis branch was one long rectangle in soft cream, demure yellow, and brown. With wide aisles and plenty of open space, the interior was restful if empty-looking in places. High windows facing Weston Road provided a sunlit view of a wooden trellis that called out for grape vines (and a paint job) on the sidewalk. I also noticed that the interior paint was peeling in a few spots and that water damage had taken out a chunk of the ceiling near the checkout desk. However, the main level was still a pleasant place to study in English, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, or Vietnamese.

The basement level contained the children’s section and a series of giant wooden jigsaw pieces on the east wall. My favourite puzzle piece had a dark red background and was decorated with a diverse circle of children’s faces surrounded by painty handprints in green, purple, black, yellow, and blue. Lining the walls of a narrow corridor outside the children’s room was an art display called the “100 Dreams Project” which perfectly complemented the jigsaw piece. Kindergarten artists such as Adesh, Ashanti, Caleb, Demetri, Issacher, Jenny, Jah-Shy, Lotus, Megan, Marcus, Nawall, Shivani, Stephany, Yasmin, and Zipporah had painted kites, monsters, ice-cream cones, volcanoes, babies, guinea pigs, and a purple ball on small square canvases.

Mount Dennis Library was a congenial host for this exuberant exhibit by students from Dennis Avenue Community School. I hope it inspires all of us patrons to colour our walls with dreams!

To enrich your Sheridan Mall shopping experience, check out Black Creek Library on the lower level between a denture clinic and a dry cleaners. A resident of the mall since 2002, Black Creek branch shares its architect, G. Bruce Stratton, with fellow mall-libraries Woodside Square and Bayview.

When I visited a couple of Saturdays ago, I found Black Creek’s cream and brown colours very inviting, drawing me into a comfortable mall-cave. Stratton’s website wasn’t exaggerating when it described the library’s design concept as “bright and warm with flowing lines.” Responding to the cosiness, the patrons I saw really seemed at home in the newspaper lounge and the branch in general. Every computer was taken, including one screen surrounded by a spirited group of kids hooting at You-tube videos.

Liveliness was further supported by a dragon with flame-shaped eyebrows, a nearby bubble-gum rocket, and a series of wooden cutouts on the south wall that depicted happy kids with their arms up in the air. Two grey cardboard castles provided slightly more subdued decoration, but a closer look revealed a courtyard that sparkled with multicoloured glitter and a blue clay moat.

The most distinctive feature of Black Creek was a magical reading zone whose borders were defined by a semi-circular wall about four feet high and a tiled pillar opposite the wall. The shiny pillar supported a round structure overhead that Stewart compared to a showerhead. Hanging from the tiled showerhead were delicate lights enclosed in purple and dark-red glass which illuminated a round table and small chairs below. Completing the stylish nook were shelves built into the inside curve of the wall.

Stewart was getting library-weary after visiting three in one afternoon, so before leaving I just took a quick glance at the ESL collection (meaty) and the multilingual shelves (diverse). Languages on offer were Spanish, Italian, Chinese, French, and Vietnamese. I also stopped to consider how Black Creek influences the atmosphere of North York Sheridan Mall.

Ever since I saw my first mall library in Canada five years ago, I’ve always considered the idea somewhat odd. Borrowing books seems so out of place in a zone where everything else is for sale. However, I’m becoming more and more appreciative of the fact that mall branches like Black Creek, Bridlewood, Eglinton Square, and Maryvale provide welcome patches of public space in a larger establishment devoted almost exclusively to private profit. In this way, a library “redeems” a mall instead of tainting itself with the surrounding commercialism. I think we need these literary ambassadors of the immaterial in a material world.

Recently relocated from a mall down the street, Jane/Sheppard now occupies the site of a former police station. I had missed the grand opening last April, so I was excited to finally visit the branch a week ago and enjoy its refreshing newness. Even the carpet smelled new!

Built in the shape of a glass cube by Cannon Design, the simplicity of Jane/Sheppard’s visual impact appealed to me. Despite a floor space of only 7,000 square feet, the interior felt uncluttered, calm, and airy. An antidote to claustrophobia, it was very easy to breathe freely in this elegant branch. The combination of abundant glass, sunlight, and subtle whites and greens led me to two similes: a translucent piece of key lime pie and a classy paperweight for a giant (who likes key lime pie).

A small number of patrons dotted the libraryscape, so it wasn’t hard to find a place to sit and look around. I chose a long booth with a wide table designed to accommodate laptops. I’d never seen booths like these in a library and found them quite innovative. What’s more, a broad range of seating needs were met at this welcoming branch, including nice low chairs for magazine readers facing Sheppard Avenue, a window seat on the west wall, and cushioned blocks in yellow, red, and green for the smaller kids. Crouched near the blocks were three dense, low-to-the-ground animals in dark grey leather: an elephant, a hippo, and a rhino.

Reluctantly rising from my comfortable booth, I left Jane/Sheppard with a sense of appreciation for its quiet, undemanding presence. What a successful addition to Toronto Public Library‘s infrastructure!

This post’s title makes York Woods Library sound like a contestant in a pageant, but I doubt such a solid, functional structure would identify with beauty competitions. When Stewart saw the thick exposed concrete of the interior, he said, “This Brutalist style reminds me of my local library in Scotland in the 1970′s.” Brutalism was new to me, but a quick Wikipedia foray confirmed that York Woods, which was built in 1970, possessed Brutalist concrete blockiness in spades. (The article mentioned that Prince Charles is a prominent Brutalist opponent, so if he ever wants to join the 99-branch club, he’ll need to be put on tranquilizers before visiting this branch in northwest Toronto).

Behind the wide checkout desk at York Woods was a sign that invited everyone to “Enjoy Cricket, Lovely Cricket with The York Woods Library.” In fact, we had just seen a lively, informal game in progress in the parking lot, with a tennis ball standing in for a cricket ball. The community-friendly vibe was consistent throughout the inside of the building as well, from the large variety of languages available on second floor (including Urdu, Spanish, Hindi, Tamil, Polish, and Somali among others) to the Learning Centre’s computer lab and the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection.

Near the Leading to Reading Office on the main floor was a Victory over Violence Exhibit. According to VOV’s website, this program “hopes to inspire young people throughout the world to identify and counteract the root causes of violence.” Posters and large freestanding cardboard displays defined passive violence, verbal abuse, oppression, and social apathy. I was especially struck by Martin Luther King Junior’s quotation: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Promoting early reading skills is definitely something that matters to the Toronto Public Library, as evidenced by the large children’s section at York Woods branch. This part of the library contained a Children’s West Indian and Black Heritage Collection as well as materials reflecting the linguistic diversity of the neighbourhood. A solid window bench waited for readers beside a window overlooking a community garden. And decorating a nearby wall was a cloth jack-in-the box with bells on his cap and a yellow and red ruffle around his neck. Smiling Jack seemed pleased to have sprung out of his box into such a dynamic library.

Having thoroughly enjoyed my tour of York Woods, I went to fetch Stewart, who was patiently reading in an armchair with a view of the garden and a Baptist church. Thank you kind Stewart for being there on my 75th TPL visit!