On my first visit to City Hall Library in 2007, I described it as “cozy yet important.” The small size of the branch (5,074 square feet) made it cozy, and what made it feel important was the lofty ceiling and serious grey walls (appropriate for its dignified status as co-tenant with Toronto’s municipal government offices).
After my second visit, I’d like to add the adjective “groovy” to complement cozy and important. In fact, grooviness saved City Hall from taking itself too seriously, as evidenced by this triangles-on-acid painting and the lively view of Nathan Phillips Square available from the south-facing windows.
I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed sitting in front of the south windows, for I noticed piles of magazines left behind by afternoon readers. (A staff member told me that they have lines out the door during lunch hour). Stacked at random on a long stone bench were slightly rumpled editions of People, Hello (“The Dazzling Duchess!”), Popular Science, Spiderman, and Vogue.
One weighty tome stood tall among the fluffier reading fare on the bench: Canada: An Illustrated History. And I personally added several more books to the piles of reading material: the colourful Let It Shine, a book about Albanians who sheltered Jews during World War Two (which one of my Albanian students had told me about), and a sample from the Chinese collection.
In spite of City Hall’s businesslike vibe, it contained a lot of interesting corners and angles that offered respite from the brisk pace of city life. For example, the small Children’s section was tucked away in the tail of a curved wall. Disc-shaped cushions silently invited readers to settle more comfortably into a beam of sunlight.
Most quirky and mysterious of all was a partially hidden staircase which led nowhere in classic Escher fashion. As I was taking pictures, I noticed a man in a suit walk down the top steps and then disappear behind the walls that hid the bottom half of the stairs. He quickly reappeared at the top, looking confused.
When I asked the temporary branch head, Karen Singer, about the steps, she explained that the library used to occupy more space (11,000 square feet) in the larger City Hall building. In 1996, a substantial part the library’s collection was transferred to Urban Affairs. That’s when the stairs were walled off from the current library space.
The confused staircase man could have benefited from Karen’s explanation, and I hope he eventually found his way out. Better still, I wish he had discovered the entrance to City Hall branch instead. Then he could have picked up a copy of Newsweek or even studied House of Stairs by the south windows in good scholarly company.