Category: Urbanism

The Stories that Changed My Mind

~ ejmcewan ~ Leave a comment

Telling stories changes us.

Five years ago, I started taking occasional freelance journalism work with the local weekly Soapbox, a digital news publication with a heavy focus on community news. Up until then, I had subcontracted a few stories for journalist friends and was often copywriting for work, but I was mostly writing music and dabbling in blogging for myself.

The Soapbox gig was exciting for me because I’d spent the past ten years involved in community-based nonprofit work, first as an AmeriCorps member and then on staff with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful. I had met many amazing Cincinnati residents during that time and had partnered with people in nearly every city neighborhood, as well as regional communities.

I loved the people of Cincinnati and I was excited to help tell their stories.

Of all the stories I’ve written, my favorite by far are the “people stories.” For these stories, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting face to face with the subjects, sometimes sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, around town or in their homes, hearing about not only the awesome work they’re engaged in today but where they’re from and what motivates and inspires them.

I have met some remarkable people and have heard both heartbreaking and encouraging stories. More than once, I’ve found myself choking back tears in our interviews. More than once, I’ve found myself laughing with them and sharing my own similar experience. Nearly every time, I’ve walked away wondering how I could possibly do justice to their experience.

Many of my stories have been focused on amazing people of color or the issues relevant to, specifically, black residents or neighborhoods in our city–including two separate three-month embedded journalism projects in the Walnut Hills neighborhood. From my brief experience with these people, I have learned how much we have in common and, just as often, how very different our lives have been.

I have learned how very much I still have to learn.

I count myself blessed to help tell their stories and twelve of my favorites are shared below.

– Walnut Hills diversity and affordable housing issues with resident Kathryne Gardette and business owner Matt Cuff (2020).

– MORTAR co-founder and entrepreneur Derrick Braziel (2015)

– Avondale resident and community leader Fulton Jefferson (2015).

– Walnut Hills’ Frederick Douglass School’s resource coordinator Sheena Dunn and parent leader Jeanna Martin (2016).

– Walnut Hills’ Frederick Douglass School with resident Sowonie Kollie (2020).

– Bush Recreation Center Director Vanessa Henderson and Grand Master Martess Miller of Miller’s Karate Studios (2016).

– Covington, Kentucky’s Lincoln Grant Scholar House and resident Teasa Johnson (2017).

– Ollie’s Trolley’s owner Martin Smith (2018).

– Cincinnati Health Department Commissioner Melba Moore (2019).

– Racial reconciliation group facilitator Lynn Watts (2019).

– Walnut Hills residents and urban professionals Allen and Kyla Woods (2020).

– And, my absolute favorite story to write was about three local centenarians, including Mattie Walker (2017). (One of these beautiful people has since passed.)

Enjoy!

Tongues of Fire and the City is Burning

~ ejmcewan ~ Leave a comment

I can hear the crackling outside my window.
Between the police sirens and helicopters’ beating and distant voices yelling, I hear it spreading through the cracks in the pavement.

Fire.

It’s the fire that grows from pain and frustration bubbling over into anger and chaos and it demands to be heard.

Well, I hear it.
And I understand where it comes from. I always have.

(I’m serious. Please believe me.)

The racism. The injustice.
Yes, I see it.

It’s one of the reasons I’m here.

I loved you and I wanted to do something to help.
I prayed to be a blessing.
I asked for the Spirit of God.

Maybe not enough.

For what it’s worth, you should know that I almost joined you yesterday, early, before the sun went down. Before things got crazy. Before the cops pulled out the body armor and shields.

But I was too tired. And too concerned with right and wrong and “the appropriate way to solve the problem.”

So I stayed home.

Now it’s 2am and there are sirens nearby.
I am not afraid because I am not the victim here.

But now I know that I am also no help.
And I have no answers.

Today is Pentecost.
We should be on Fire.
Instead, the city is burning.

 

Rescuing My Kids’ Childhood From My Fear

~ ejmcewan

My eleven year-old carries a pocket knife.

He cooks his own eggs. He rides a bike without a helmet. He hangs out on the front porch alone and digs through his dad’s woodworking tools without supervision.

After 11 years of parenting and four kids, I have never “baby-proofed” my home. No outlet covers, no table corner pads, no baby gates. No hiding the kitchen knives. No carrying hand sanitizer on my keychain.

We are a bumps and bruises, trial and error kind of family.

This sometimes gives people the impression that my husband and I are careless with our children or negligent. But the truth is that I welcome a healthy dose of vulnerability to danger in my home because I need to, not because I want to. In fact, I want none of this.

Sometimes it sounds like a dream to have quiet, calm, safe children who think nothing of setting fires in the backyard or being left home alone before they’re 16.

But “safe” is not what most children are. Nor what they should be.

Left to their own devices, children are small madmen, conjuring experiments and fairytales while dressed in their father’s work coat. They are con-artists. They are magicians. They are storytellers and thieves and tightrope walkers. They dream big and believe everything and sometimes really do think they could fly if they tried.

And the more alive they are in their child-ness, the more vulnerable to danger they become and the more their safety falls outside my control.

I want control.
I want power.

So none of this “free range kids” stuff feels good to me, at least not at first, because it is a daily reminder of the frailty of life and the powerlesness of parenting.

It doesn’t matter how smart and competent my kid is or how well my toddler can climb the stairs. The truth is: I cannot protect them from all the dangers of the world. I obviously know this. But every time they make a small mistake that leads to a small consequence–they cut their finger, they trip running down the sidewalk, etc.–it’s like a reminder that they may one day make a big mistake with a big consequence. And then the reality hits me that, one day, they might get hurt. Hurt bad. Or hurt someone else. (Or both.)

The anxiety can sometimes feel crippling.

I worry for my kids all the time. I worry about both rational and irrational things. I worry about them being bit by angry dogs, being abused by a friend, or getting stuck on an elevator alone.

House fires, flash floods, bee stings, hiking accidents, infectious diseases, accidental poisoning. I worry about all of it.

“Then put a lock on the medicine cabinet, you idiot!”

Right?
Maybe. But probably not.

(Don’t take it personally; It’s okay if you lock your medicine cabinet.)

The lengths to which we’ll go to protect our children vary at different times, at different ages, and with different kids. Hard and fast rules don’t apply to most of this stuff. Every parent has to exercise wisdom and weigh which risks are work the benefits of taking the risk and which are not.

But, trying to ensure the absolute safety of your child with more elbow pads or a larger carseat is an exercise in futility if you haven’t first done the hard work of accepting that your children live in a world that simply not safe.

Safety–as least so far as it depends on you–is a bit of an illusion. You can wash your kids’ hands a million times and they’ll still end up sick eventually.

We often exact our control over our children in immediate ways as a way of coping with our fears about all of the things that are possible and yet completely outside our control–things like being in the wrong place at the wrong time, needing the one thing missing from the first aid kit, a freak accident, or a random act of violence.

But, the irony of making our kids “safe” and under our control is that, in these kinds of unforeseen and scary scenarios, our children’s best chance of overcoming is to conjure that mad scientist to life. (The mad scientist that some of us killed long ago with our “Be careful!” and “Slow down!” and “Stop taking my garlic powder into the backyard!”)

Our kids need to have a survival instinct as they grow. They need to be able to think on their feet, to come up with creative solutions, and to be confident enough to actually try them. Most kids start with those gifts. We need to make sure they keep and develop them.

How do we do this?

Well, it has less to do with how long their carseat faces backwards and more to do with our posture toward them and their desire to exercise their freedom.

It means training ourselves to replace the words “be careful” with “think about what might happen if you do that.”

It means no longer insisting on doing for them the things they are capable of doing themselves, whether it’s packing their lunch or putting on their mittens or leading the way to the library.

It means no longer interpreting their confidence and independence as an assault on my authority.

It means cultivating strength into benevolent leadership, pride into confidence, and strong-will into tenacity.

It means teaching them the difference between being willing to take a risk and being reckless.

It means letting them experience the power of cause and effect.

It means giving them many opportunities to solve a problem on their own.

The specifics of how you do this with your kids will look different from mine because every kid is different. (And their natural ability to navigate danger will be different, too.)

Just start somewhere and let it grow from the ground up.

What’s the pay off? Well, they grow up. And it’s awesome.

Case in point:

Last Summer, when we were at the pool, my son took my keys and ran home to grab something we’d forgotten.

Meaning: I didn’t need to pack up the four kids and all of our crap and walk back home.

Often, I’ll send my kids down the road for a loaf of bread from the bakery.

Meaning: It doesn’t ruin soup night anymore if I forget the milk.

Lately, my daughter (who is 8), has been asking if she can go spend time at the coffeeshop alone. (“When you’re ten,” I told her. And I meant it.)

Meaning: My daughter feels confident and brave and is excited to exercise those gifts.

When my kids are in a really lousy mood, I send the three oldest for a run around the block.

Meaning: They get exercise and I don’t have to deal with them when they’re acting like monsters.

Recently, I was neck deep into cooking dinner when I realized I didn’t have any milk for the recipe. So, I gave my kids $5 (which I borrowed from my son who always has more cash than me because he’s like that) and sent them down the road for a carton of milk. They were $.50 short (organic milk, dang), so my son left his sister there with the milk and he hightailed it home for the two quarters he needed.

They both returned a few minutes later.

And it felt totally normal.

This freedom should be normal for kids. I know it has been a real game-changer for us.

And, suddenly, this free-range kid thing starts to make a lot more sense.

 

Field Notes From A Gentrifier, Part III: “Affordability” and The $400 Pool Pass

~ ejmcewan ~ Leave a comment

This is Part III of an ill-advised series of “field notes” from my experience as an unintentional gentrifier in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, Ohio. Consider it the purging of my current thoughts on/observations about gentrification, urban economics, class, race, and $3.50 tacos. Three related posts are planned so far. There may be more to come. Or not.

Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.

 

I’m going to tell you a story about The McEwan Family Summer of 2018 that’s not really about the Summer of 2018. It’s really about gentrification.

I hope it illustrates the dynamic between the idea of “affordability” and the reality of affordability and what it means for the average resident of a changing neighborhood.

(The story is going to seem really all-about-me so read quickly until you get to the point.)

The story basically goes like this:

Last summer was amazing.

Last summer was amazing because the kids and I spent two or three glorious mornings a week at the neighborhood pool a few blocks away.

The pool is new and fun and convenient. We brought picnic lunches and ate $.50 popsicles. We made friends and my girls learned to swim (and I got more tanned than I’ve ever been in my life).

My kids still proudly wear their Rhinos swim team shirts on the regular. They display their race ribbons on their bedroom wall. And I’m told my daughter still makes frequent appearances in their promo video on Fountain Square.

The McEwan Family Summer of 2018 was, basically, The Summer Of Our Lives.

But, you see, going to the pool costs money.

We didn’t buy a pool pass the first year the pool opened and then we almost didn’t buy a pool pass last summer because it was too expensive. I just couldn’t justify spending so much money on a luxury like a pool pass.

But then, on a whim, I did something crazy. I emailed someone at 3CDC, who manages the pool, about the cost.

In my email, I gave a pretty detailed diatribe about how, basically, their income-based discounts were using faulty data.

I wrote about the rising (and inflated) cost of living in our zip code, the Average Median Income for a family in our area, The Economic Policy Institute’s cost of living estimates, and provided links to plenty of online data sets and information.

I told her that, all these things considered, they should change their scale and they should give me a discount.
So they gave me a discount.
Mostly (probably) to shut me up.

(Never go in against an INTJ on something like this. Trust me on that.)

So, thanks to 3CDC and my mother in-law (who ended up buying us the pass), we had an amazing summer.

Fast forward to 2019.

I was anxious to see how 3CDC would handle pool pass fees this year. Would they diversify the sliding scale to accommodate more income situations? Would they instate a resident discount for those living in the immediate area surrounding the pool?

Well, it turns out they did change one thing: they made it more expensive for larger families.

The market rate pool pass that was $310 last year (if I remember correctly) is now $395.

Okay, I get it.
I understand that my family of 6 takes up more space at the pool than a family of 3. And I understand that it’s expensive to operate such an awesome pool. But my critique from last year still stands–whatever numbers they are using to measure “affordability” are inaccurate and totally out of touch.

Basically: it’s ridiculous to put a family of 6 living off of $60k a year in the same income bracket as a single person living off of $60k and offer them the same percentage discount. No real income based scales work this way.

Here’s the thing about a $400 summer pool pass: most moderate income people don’t really have a $100 “fun budget” every month to spend at the pool and most certainly don’t have $400 just sitting in the bank to spend on a luxury item like a pool pass. In a working class family, every penny is budgeted and any extra income goes to things like a birthday present, socks and underwear for the growing 7 year-old, or a new pair of glasses for Mom.

These are what I call Average People.

They are people living somewhere between 50-100% of Average Median Income. They may have a few of the cultural markers of the middle-class like a college education or owning their own home, but they are closer to what we usually consider “working-class” than “middle-class” in their economic stability and flexible budget.

(For reference: in 2018, the AMI for the Cincinnati metro area was $78,300 for a family of four. And I found this article helpful in articulating the difference between what we usually call “middle-class” and “working-class.”)

The last statistic I found online estimated that 35-55% of the population falls loosely into this working-class income bracket. These are teachers, administrative professionals, lower- and mid-level professionals. They are also the people who own our favorite restaurants, repair our windows, tune up our vehicles, pastor our churches, and fix our favorite pair of boots when the heel is busted.

Personally speaking, I feel like I don’t really have a lot of room to complain. (In fact, you’re probably thinking: stop complaining.) I know we’ve made decisions as a family that have plopped us in this Average People income bracket–working in the nonprofit sector, living off of one primary income, etc. (Though I could argue that our decisions are good decisions that actually benefit the world, but whatever…)

I know that even having the option of living with less income is a huge privilege.

So then why do I even mention it? What does this have to do with gentrification?

At the risk of sounding like an entitled yuppie, I bring up the $400 pool pass because it illustrates one of the effects of gentrification that doesn’t get a lot of air play–the “missing middle.”

As an urban community gentrifies, this is the demographic lost in the shuffle.

This is how I’ve witnessed it happen:

Big money (or government money or both) rolls in and starts to develop a community at the whims of (future) high-income residents. The conversation turns to “affordability.” In the conversation about affordability, developers pay huge lip service to protecting the affordability of the community for its most vulnerable residents–i.e. those who are low-income and/or living in government subsidized housing. The community is developed as planned, with pockets of lovely, new, high-cost housing and just enough low-income housing intact to keep people from complaining too much. But Average People are priced out of both housing and amenities. Their cost of living is not subsidized, yet they cannot afford market rate.

This “missing middle” isn’t a new thing. It was set into motion back in the middle 1900’s when “urban renewal” campaigns demolished entire city blocks of workforce housing in the name of revitalization.

The houses they destroyed by the dozens (hundreds?) were the kinds of homes where (if they still existed) people like me would be living today. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter; many upwardly-mobile people didn’t want to live in the city anyway. The American Dream was pulling (mostly white) middle-class people away from dense, urban areas to the promise of clean comfort and stability (and a garage to store your new lawnmower!) in new residential neighborhoods.

Now that people are (again) interested in the convenience and charm of traditional urban design, many would rather trade the ticky-tacky suburbs for older neighborhoods. But, not only has the economy changed and it’s hard to find a truly affordable place to live in a desirable neighborhood, it’s hard to afford the cost of living once you’re here.

Case in point: the $400 pool pass.

(I’ve written before about the plight of lower-middle class families and affordable housing in OTR. Check it out here.)

As for me, the higher cost of living in the city is something I’ve reconciled. There are things about our neighborhood–like a parking pass or a pool pass or a $35 entree–that are harder on our budget and that’s okay. There are trade-offs to urban living that save us money in other ways like lower transportation and yard maintenance costs (plus I’m a stay-at-home mom so I have minimal childcare costs).

But I do wish things were different not only for me, but for every other middle-income family who wants to live here now or in the future. And I wish moving out of the neighborhood wasn’t my only option for moving someday.

I wish that someone somewhere who holds the multi-million dollar development contracts was looking out for the Average Person, making sure they don’t get lost in the shuffle, forced to live where the proverbial neighborhood pool doesn’t costs as much.

Because ours is a pretty sweet pool.

So where does that leave me? Well, when the time comes to make our plans for the summer, I’ll try to find a way to pay for the dang pool pass because my kids had the Summer Of Their Lives in 2018 and 2019 must not disappoint.

And, 3CDC, if you’re reading this, I love your pool.
I’m so very thankful you built it for us.

But you need to hire a better statistician.

 

 

 

(Possibly) later in the Field Notes series:

How to Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis
My $13 Box of Macarons

 

Stay tuned!

 

Field Notes From A Gentrifier, Part II: Class, Culture, and Race (and Racism)

~ ejmcewan ~ 1 Comment

This is Part II of an ill-advised series of “field notes” from my experience as an unintentional gentrifier in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, Ohio. Consider it the purging of my current thoughts on/observations about gentrification, urban economics, class, race, and $3.50 tacos. Three related posts are planned so far. There may be more to come. Or not.

Read Part I here.

One of the reasons gentrification is such a hard thing to talk about is that it pricks our sensitivities to complicated social structures of class, culture, and race. But it doesn’t take long into the conversation to realize that we not only disagree about how these things play into urban development, but also what these things even mean.

Some definitions:

Class-
a :  a group sharing the same economic or social status    the working class
b :  social rank; especially :  high social rank    the classes as opposed to the masses

Culture–
 the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also :  the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time     popular culture     Southern culture

Race-
a :  a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
b :  a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics

 

Gentrification is almost always perceived as a racism problem. This is evidenced by the fact that people complaining most about gentrification are almost always implicitly (or explicitly) referring to “rich white people” taking over “poor black” neighborhoods. But we know that redevelopment (in both equitable and inequitable ways) happens in all communities and at the hand of white and black people alike.

Yet, still, this is how the conversation usually goes:

Someone (usually a white someone) of influence in an urban development project will speak of the urban community as one plagued by blight and crime. They will point to their plan to “clean up the neighborhood.”

Or someone (usually a white someone) will move into a neighborhood and claim they’re interested in “helping make it better.”

But, instead of hearing the kind hearts of well-intended people trying to make the community a better place, we think they mean “I want to get rid of the poor black people in this neighborhood.”

Now, we know that there are many terrible people in this world, people who are legitimately racist or spiteful or simply ignorant. And they have done terrible things to other people including, but not limited to, taking over entire neighborhoods for their own interests. But let’s pretend for a minute that not all white people with the means or influence to change a community meet the description of Racist Colonizer. Cool? Cool.

Then, let’s be honest about urban blight and crime.

Because those who fight hand over fist to stop gentrification don’t seem to think there’s a problem to solve, but they’re wrong.

Over the past 50(ish) years, our urban communities have seen a devastating amount of economic and social disinvestment. There’s good reason why the urban stereotype is dirty, dangerous, and disenfranchised (I love alliteration). We can argue about why cities became such a dump at the end of the 20th Century (spoiler: racism has a lot to do with it) but you can’t deny it happened or that it was/is a problem.

In the almost ten years I’ve lived in Over-the-Rhine:

In alleys and on sidewalks, alongside your standard littered garbage, I’ve picked up (and properly disposed of) used condoms, used tampons, used heroin needles, and dirty underwear.

I’ve watched a well-dressed young woman drop her drawers and defecate on the sidewalk in broad daylight and then walk away like nothing ever happened.

At least weekly, in full view of my kitchen window, someone uses our alleyway as a urinal.

Human feces appears a couple times a year.

We’ve had 5-6 incidents of theft from our front yard, back yard, or vehicle. Twice it has happened right in front of my eyes by people who acted surprised that I was surprised by their stealing from me.

For a time, someone was hiding stolen electronics in our yard.

I once found a man sleeping under a tarp in our backyard in the afternoon.

I’ve watched countless (literally countless) drug-dealing interactions on and around my street.

I’ve found people passed out on the sidewalk from drinking or doping.

Gunshots. Lots of them.

A man was shot by police within view of my second-story window on a sunny afternoon.

At our old apartment, a woman rang our doorbell late at night and begged for help and said she was running away from her violent boyfriend and could I please save her?

I once woke (with most of my neighbors) in the middle of the night to a woman screaming that she had just been assaulted around the corner and needed help.

Strangers ring my doorbell just to ask for money.

(Oh, golly, city living sounds great, right?)

So, what’s my point in listing these incidents?
I want to illustrate that there are things that happen on a regular basis in mixed-income, dense, urban areas that simply do not happen with any comparable frequency in other places. (Other place have other problems, to be sure.) And that you’re crazy to try and justify and protect these characteristically urban blight and crime issues the same way you’d fight to protect an ethnic food eatery or the right for homeless people to loiter in public parks (both of which I support, btw).

But, what does this have to do with racism?
Well, I didn’t give you any indication whether the people involved in these incidents were black or white. And I can promise that it’s a nice, healthy mix. So my bigger point is that the desire to “clean up the city” it not about getting rid of black people. For most normal residents, it’s about simple quality-of-life things like making the city a place where kids and moms and old men in wheelchairs don’t have to dodge human feces while traveling down the sidewalk.

And for someone to call a white person a racist because they’re willing to say people shouldn’t crap in public is like saying that public defecation is somehow related to being black, which is a flat out, evil lie that should offend all of us.

So, okay. Maybe I’m right.
Maybe gentrification isn’t really about race.
But then what is it about?

It’s about class and it’s about culture.

And class and culture are more complicated and are issues of justice and personal responsibility and values, which means getting at the root of what actually makes us different from each other. So I understand why we would rather make it about race.  We are not responsible for our race or ethnicity. Even a marginally ethical person can and should be ideologically offended by racism. But we all get personally offended by criticisms of our class or culture.

If you ask me–which you didn’t, except that you’re reading my blog so you kinda did–the real gentrification conversation is less about what race of people are moving in or out of a neighborhood and more about

a) how to build a community where there is mobility between social and economic classes, facilitated through our means of housing, educating, socializing, and employing our residents and

b) how to design the community so that the cultural landscape (food, art, aesthetics, etc.) is truly representative of all the residents in the community, not just the new ones with money.

 

But where does that leave us?

I am a young, white, middle-class urban dweller. I may feel powerless at times in my neighborhood but, compared to some of my minority or lower-income neighbors, I have great influence. So I (and my peers) need to be pressed on these two questions. And we need to hold community leaders, investors, and developers accountable to them.

But we can’t have these really important conversations across class and cultural lines if we can’t, first, agree that there are some things about our shared community that none of us should be defending.

Some things are simply uncultured and class-less–
Things like heroin.
And stealing my kid’s bike.

And crapping on my sidewalk.

 

 

 

(Possibly) later in the Field Notes series:

How to Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis
My $13 Box of Macarons

Stay tuned!

 

What a Children’s Library is Good For

~ ejmcewan ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this summer, it was announced that the Cincinnati Public Library is pursuing selling off a part of their downtown branch’s facility and consolidating services into their main building. Under normal circumstances, consolidating services sounds like a grand idea. Save space. Save time. Save resources. Right?

The situation at the library is a bit more complicated than that for two reasons.

First, the word on the street is that the library’s facility could be sold off to a private developer, transferring an entire city block of beloved public amenities into private investors’ hands. Our community (OTR) is already burdened under the heavy hand of big investments from people who seem to think they know what we need better than we know ourselves and we’re tired of it. So this is not a welcome option.

Second, most of the services that will need to be moved and consolidated are geared toward youth: the children’s library and garden, the teenspace, etc. (plus the makerspace!). The threat of losing the entire building is scary for parents (and kids) like us who make frequent use of it and its kid-friendly services.

So what can we do about it?

Well, we’ve seen how these things work. By the time the public hears rumors of this sort of thing, backroom dealings have already occurred. So I understand that it’s probably too late to do anything at all.

Plus, maybe the experts are right. Maybe the library can consolidate and still offer the same quality of service. So maybe it doesn’t even make sense to fight it.

But, for those willing to hear, there’s a lot that needs to be said in favor of the library as it is. And there are certainly a few words left to be spoken about the Children’s library, in particular.

 

Here goes:

  • The public library is one of the only free, indoor public spaces downtown. It provides public restrooms, comfortable chairs, internet access, water fountains, shelter from the rain and cold, etc. It is impossible to quantify the public good a library does by its very presence, in addition to any actual literary contribution to society. Losing any square footage, honestly, is a huge loss.
  • Because it is a completely free public amenity, it attracts a diverse group of patrons. So long as you follow the rules (which are few), all are welcome. This kind of inclusive space exists almost nowhere. It is worth protecting. While attending storytime, public programs, or just browsing for books, my kids and I have felt part of a truly diverse community. This is one of my favorite things about living downtown and one of the best things about the library.
  • The children’s garden is one of the city’s only public, enclosed outdoor spaces for kids. Washington Park’s playground is fenced in, as well, but the library’s garden is different. It feels like a natural escape in an otherwise concrete jungle. We’ve had picnics in the garden, school lessons, played tag, practiced bird watching, and more. There is another, very nice, walled garden at the library’s south building, but it is open to all patrons. Adding the natural chaos of children to such a dignified garden may be tricky for both parties.
  • The children’s library is heavy on books and lite on media. There are a handful of computers and iPads available for use (and, yes, my kids use them and love them), but the majority of the space is still occupied by books. Real books. The kind of books many libraries don’t even keep on public floors anymore. Consolidating the children’s library, I fear, means hiding all those lovely books behind closed doors. Which means we’ll now have to request a book from a librarian at the desk. Which means fewer children experiencing the pleasure of browsing through shelves of unfamiliar books to find literary treasure which is, honestly, one of the greatest joys of reading.
  • Because of the way the building is currently laid out, the children’s library seems isolated from the rest of the library. I understand how it’s likely a logistical nightmare for staff and management because, I will admit, I don’t often make my way over to “my books” anymore because it’s so inconvenient. But this kind of set-apart “kid space” is a dream for my kids. We walk into the building and they instantly feel at home. They roam within the confines of their own library without me hovering over. And it’s not really about “safety”; it’s about ownership and comfort. They can wander and browse and enjoy their pint-sized library world with their own librarians, their own kids-sized bathrooms, their own computers to use, their own garden, their own public events and summers camps and storytimes. Babies even have their own toys. My fear is that moving the children’s library to the other building means surrendering their domain and being grandfathered into a building where–like everywhere else in their world–everything is made for adults. This is nowhere more evident than the computer labs in the south building where most of the adults are busy watching music videos, playing video games, and (I’m sure) some are watching porn. What adults do with their free time is their decision, but that’s not exactly the cultural experience I’m hoping to provide for my children when I visit the library. So, it’s nice to let kids have their own space to be kids.

 

A few weeks ago, I thought I might gather some friends to stage a “read-in” in solidarity for the Children’s library and garden. In my mind, I was going to be a big hero and I was going to save the library and we’d all live happily ever after in our safe, spacious, kid-sized literary wonderland. But, like I said, I think it’s probably too late to actually do anything about this. So, I am relegated to writing instead so I can at least feel like “I said something.”

My hope is that, no matter what decision is made about the fate of our library, those in power are able to design the new children’s space to be as beneficial to the community as the current one is.

We love the children’s library. And, if/when it’s gone some day soon, we will damn sure miss it.

Even if we love the new one, too.

 

 

“The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.” – Charlotte Mason