NYC Markets revisited, episode 2. In which I'm lovin' on the library.

I don't remember when I first learned to read, but I fondly remember my first library.  I'm grinning a goofy ear-to-ear grin right now thinking about the Warner Public Library in Tarrytown, New York.  I have vividly bookish memories of Saturday mornings spent in the children's room searching the colorful stacks for my limit of five books to check out whereupon I would sit in a comfortable chair paging through them, trying to decide which I was going to read first.  I also liked going to Warner because the librarians were very friendly. They talked to me with respect and asked questions about what I liked to read and about the books I was returning and that made me feel important.  My love affair with libraries didn't end there, of course.

When I was a sophomore at Sleepy Hollow High School I had the good fortune of discovering my talent as a typist (100 WPM on a good day) and was recommended for a job as a typist.  At the Warner Library!  I was still an avid library patron and always had the overdue fines to prove it.  I could just never let go of books!

I was ecstatically nervous that Saturday morning in October of 1981 when I entered the library, not as an eager patron, but as a potential employee.  After a typing test, some card filing in the beautifully-patinaed oak catalog card files, and shelving some books correctly, I was given the job of clerk/typist and I started the following Monday after school at $3.35 per hour (which was, of course, minimum wage, yet still most exciting and liberating to this 15-year-old).

I worked between 10-15 hours per week for two weeks before I actually told my parents I had a job.  Mom and Dad hadn't wanted us to work because, according to them, school was our "job," but I worked my weekly 10-15 hours and then full-time during school holidays and summers (all without any adverse academic aftermath).  I worked at Warner all through college, too, when I came home from Indiana for breaks and summer vacations.

The Warner Public Library was my second home not just because of the warmth of my new friends and colleagues or the similarly inviting and nurturing comfort of the rows upon rows of neatly ordered and colorfully presented books, but because the building itself is such a remarkably beautiful example of neoclassical architecture.  A gift of the Warner family in 1929 to the people of the Tarrytowns, the breathtaking limestone building includes a large fireplace in the front reading room and ornamental moldings and cathedral ceilings throughout.  There was even a dumbwaiter behind the circulation desk that we used to transport books up to the second floor and down to the basement.  Don't tell anyone, but the high school students who worked as pages would give each other rides up and down the dumbwaiter when we knew we wouldn't get caught.  I wonder if that is still a tradition among the student employees!

Sorry, but I can't help going into all this so-called (by Holden Caulfield) "David Copperfield kind of crap" because I just love the Warner Library and because it was such a significant part of my childhood and because I do have a point.

My point is pictured here.

The Library Hotel is a dream come true for bookworms (late-in-life librarians or not) looking to carve out their own peaceful share of the Big Apple during a snowy spring visit.  No need to brush up on the Dewey Decimal System, but be sure to ask for a specific theme if you want to be surrounded by the perfect reading materials.  We were in the Native American room on the twelfth floor and found several shelves of volumes awaiting browsable respites from chilly city sidewalks.  Chocolates enrobed in golden wrappers emblazoned with literary quotes awaited us every evening at turn-down service.

Almost as good as being tucked in by a librarian!

Just ask Mari.

(almost as good)

You can read my full review (gush) of New York's Library Hotel on TripAdvisor or simply check out the site for more info.  Be sure to sign up for special e-mail offers.

libraryhotel.com

We'll get back to the very serious business of fleamarketing (in our fresh-out-of-hibernation South Texas winter clothing) next time, I promise, but for now I'll leave you with a bit of a tease.

Before I get myself into some grammatical (and marital) trouble, It is not Mari that is the tease, but the photo.  Until next week...