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, their warmth drawing me into a comfortable mall-cave. Stratton truly fulfilled the design concept described in its website: “bright and warm with flowing lines”. Supporting the goal of cosiness, the patrons really seemed at home in the newspaper lounge. 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 which supported a round structure overhead. Stewart compared the latter to an exaggerated 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 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 library branches like Black Creek provide a welcome patch 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 glimpses of the immaterial in a material world.