56/100: The Library Goes Coastal
This vignette is one in a series of 100 about the libraries of New York City (and Los Angeles, just for today)
We took a little sojourn last week and then I caught a bug while traveling, so I haven’t been writing. I’m mostly feeling better now. As an apology for the interruption, here are last week’s thoughts from a day at the Beverly Hills Public Library:
I’ve heard people hate on Los Angeles for being unwalkable, but I was able to get to the library on foot via Santa Monica Boulevard, stopping to stroll Rodeo Drive on the way. The iconic shopping enclave is perhaps a seven minute walk to the library, which itself is part of an overarching community center. Across from the library sits the city hall building, and kitty corner is the Beverly Hills Police Department. The buildings were all part of the same construction project: white stucco, mid-century modern, though with lots of rounded arches . Like the city it lives in, the complex gives off a laid-back, unfussed vibe.
Through the arched doorways and into the library, you get the impression it goes on forever; the architectural equivalent of L.A.’s infamous urban sprawl. One open concept room gives way to the next in what feels like a split-level warehouse. In one room, an elevated gallery overlooks the rest of the space, like a house perched over the Sunset Strip taking in the city.
Perhaps because of its massive scale, the library feels quite empty. There are of course people here but there are fewer of them, or else they’re more spread out so they appear to be fewer. Even in the central reading room, every person here has their own table, except for the odd study couplet of college kids. It’s a gorgeous room: tons of natural light and clean lines and wall-to-wall turquoise carpeting, part of a larger theme of turquoise that runs through the decor scheme. I kind of love it. Not the hue itself, but the fact that at some point the library decorating committee decided to make this place primarily turquoise. Very California.
In fact, this field trip reinforces my little theory that libraries are simply microcosms of the communities they serve. This comes through in the decor — breezy, bohemian, and slightly 80s in Beverly Hills, historic and artsy in the West Village, quirky and unfussy in Brooklyn — but also in the people. I turn my attention to the two men sitting at a table three over from mine.
They’re both in their early twenties, both with longish, skaterboy haircuts and matching beanie hats despite the 70+ temperatures and also being indoors. One wears a pair of noise-cancelling headphones around his neck. The other one whispers into his friend’s exposed left ear.
[Another notable difference between this library and the ones back home is the volume — it’s much lower here. It could be the acoustics of a space like this one, or that fewer people are here, or that New Yorkers are just loud, but whatever it is, a lovely silence resounds through the room. As such you can hear everything, including whispers.]
“I don’t think they should get into a fight, not like a shouting fight. It’s got to be more subtle.”
“But this is how we show depth and have him go a little crazy.”
“No dude it should be more nuanced.”
“But then there’s no dialogue for this scene or almost none.”
“No dude it’s just building up character tension with like body language and facial acting.”
They’re writing a screenplay. Of course they are. How did it not occur to me until now that for every would-be novelist in New York City there are two aspiring showrunners in L.A.? I had wondered, in the days leading up to this trip, what kind of people I would find here. The answer is still storytellers, only these ones are on average slightly younger and less pasty.
Thanks for reading!
