Early Review of the New Library Building

From: Ray Marshall [raymarsh@mninter.net]
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 3:43 PM
To: 'Mpls'
Subject: Early Review of the New Library Building

I don't get downtown that much these days but I happened to be there this
morning and drove by the new library. Just got a quick glance from Hennepin
and Fourth Street's vantage points. It's going to open in a few months.

Starting with the open disclosure that I have often been accused of not
knowing what I am talking about, I venture the opinion that at first glance
it looks like they remodeled the old building, changed the yellow color to
cream, left the gray color as it was and added a couple of floors. Oh,
yeah, and it looks like Paul Bunyan left one of his chisels on the roof.
But they're not done yet, so he'll probably come back to pick it up.

I'll further add that as much as I love books and libraries, and I really
do, my personal collection is nothing to be ashamed of, I voted against the
referendum.

It was my opinion, and nobody listened, that the existing building should
have been remodeled as a business-medical-technology-research library with a
greatly increased collection in those areas (and maybe a few others) and
lots of nifty stuff on patents, copyrights and trademarks, etc. and
ultra-modern technology for the State's business community. I have a friend
who was the City Manager of Sunnyvale, CA, "capital" of Silicon Valley in
the 80s, and that's what that community did. Of course, they had tons of
money.

Then, the general collection of the library should have been moved to a new
location with a lot more parking: maybe on the near North along the river,
or in an area crying for redevelopment. I've talked to developers and
shopping center builders. The general public doesn't like to go to places
where parking isn't obvious and locations where they don't quite know where
to go when they get out of their car. Construction would probably have been
cheaper too.

I'm sure the new building will be nifty from the inside, but considering how
much money is being spent, it doesn't look like the city got much in the
line of architecture on the outside. (This is another one of those problems
that can be attributed to the fragmented form of municipal government we
have).

And speaking of my neighborhood library, East Lake, I see that the
contractor, "Slow-Motion-Construction", after about a year or better, seems
to finally have started building something. When you figure that Target can
throw up a building in a few months, and Wal-Mart probably faster, and that
this isn't the first neighborhood library ever to be built, it sure seems
like it is taking a very long time for this project. Have I read somewhere
that the Walker Library is still a mess?

Now, having donned my Dad's old Civil Defense Air Raid Warden helmet from
WWII, I await your thoughts.