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Toronto Public Library Pilgrimage of 100 Branches

North York Central (Concourse Level and Atrium)

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The two major attractions of North York Central’s basement level are Book Ends (a second-hand bookstore) and a spacious Study Hall with a view of Mel Lastman Square’s reflecting pool. The bookstore was closed on my first visit, so I focused my attention on the Study Hall.

Five long tables worthy of feasting Vikings occupied the majority of the hall, and almost every chair was taken. It was fascinating how each student had created a miniature encampment to maintain personal space in a crowded area. For table-territory definition, the scholars had carefully piled up laptops, highlighter pens, bags of crisps, water bottles, dictionaries marked with fluttering sticky tabs, calculators, hefty textbooks, Starbucks cups, take-out boxes, and bottles of skin-cream. The study-forts proclaimed, “Breach these ramparts at your peril!”

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More tables lined the tall windows on the south side of the study hall. In addition, individual study carrels, a stage, and a few potted trees dotted the studyscape. One of the plants had been coaxed to sprout a post-it note.

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Capping off the room’s amenities, the Marget Canning and Jean Orpwood Adult Literacy Centre and the Talking Books Mobile Outreach Service beamed helpfully from the north wall and east walls respectively. I admired the calligraphy etched on the glass of the Literacy Centre’s windows so much that I was tempted to move some study carrels that were obstructing part of the artwork. However, I contented myself with photographing the visible lettering.

IMG_8432IMG_8414After exiting the east side of North York Central from the first level, I stood in the liminal space of the cavernous atrium. When I looked up, I saw a giant mural on the north wall over the main entrance from the mall. Three horizontal rows of five characters each repeated the letters and characters in different patterns. I recognized a couple of the scripts, but the meaning remained mysterious.

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Thanks to the library’s manager, Kim Huntley, I recently learned that calligraphy mural’s design was the work of a distinguished twentieth-century Canadian artist, Harold Town. According to a library information handout, Town “designed it for the exterior of the old Willowdale Library . . . (and) moved to the new Central library in 1987.” The frieze’s panels feature a Scandanavian rune, a Roman A, a Cree letter that resembles a plough, “the Chinese symbol for man, an L from the state of Assam in India, and a Semitic A turned on its side.”

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As I gazed at floors one to six in their entirety, I was struck by the layered complexity of the floors with their circular crow’s-nest nodules in the northwest corners, all stacked on top of each other and connected by a thick red column. From my vantage point, I could also see the carpeted sides of the many staircases, all in oatmeal pink. In contrast to the view from the sixth floor looking down, which reminded me of a pin-ball machine, the upward-from-the-concourse perspective felt seriously grand.

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Pushing open the south doors that opened onto the square, I reflected that North York Central Library had just my secured my vote for one of the Seven Wonders of the Greater Toronto Area. I looked forward to returning again to explore the remaining six floors in more depth.

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