Chinatown Storefront Library Opening Oct 14th

Lion dance, brief remarks, and open house
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
4:00-6:00 p.m.
Chinatown Storefront Library
640 Washington Street
Boston, Massachusetts, 02111

The Chinatown Storefront Library will be open to the public on October 14, 2009. Real estate company Archstone has donated three months’ use of a 3,000 square feet street-level space at 640 Washington Street to the Chinatown Storefront Library. Furniture was designed and will be installed by students at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Program partners will offer readings, classes, and events in the storefront.

From now until opening, the Chinatown Storefront Library is raising funds (and can be as low as $5) to support and cover the Chinatown Storefront Library’s operations which includes a paid staff to oversee the library. The Chinatown Storefront Library is also requesting donations of books. To donate visit (www.storefrontlibrary.org/donate/). For more information on the Chinatown Storefront Library and the latest project news: (www.storefrontlibrary.org/news/)

ABOUT THE STOREFRONT LIBRARY PROJECT

The Chinatown neighborhood of Boston has been without a branch of the Boston Public Library since 1956, when the library was closed and demolished to make way for the construction of the Central Artery. Chinatown has remained one of the few communities in Boston without its own neighborhood branch library, in spite of strong community support. Chinatown is primarily a pedestrian community, with many elderly residents and working parents with children. Traveling to other libraries is difficult, and there is no other street-level space offering the services typically found in a neighborhood branch.

In 2001, the Chinese Youth Initiative of the Chinese Progressive Association started a campaign to bring a library back to Chinatown. This led to the creation of a broad-based advocacy group called Friends of the Chinatown Library. In 2007, the City of Boston commissioned the Chinatown Library Program and Siting Study which determined the program and sites preferred by the community. Since the study’s completion date in June 2008, the economic picture for all City-initiated projects has darkened, and there are no current plans (or funding) for moving forward on any of the study’s conclusions.

In order to sustain the momentum created by the Siting Study process, Boston Street Lab and DMU proposed the Chinatown Storefront Library to the Friends of the Chinatown Library group in December 2008. The Storefront Library will transform one of Boston Chinatown’s vacant, commercial, street-level spaces into a temporary public library. Operating for approximately three months, the project will create a memorable event for Chinatown and a new destination for visitors to downtown Boston. It will also provide a selection of urgently needed services for a community that has been without a library since 1956, including books, newspapers, periodicals, internet access, a children’s reading area, film screenings, classes, and community events—all visible to passersby from the street.

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