Mayor Ed Selich issued a proclamation honoring the Corona del Mar library branch’s 50th anniversary at the City Council meeting this week, and City Councilwoman Nancy Gardner thanked library staff for their hard work.
“We really appreciate your support in the ravamping and reviving,” Gardner said at the council meeting.
The branch on Marigold Avenue has been closed since July 7 for remodeling to prepare it for a grand re-opening with ceremonies beginning July 28. Meanwhile, staff has been calling residents with book requests to pick them up at Central Library while preparations are complete. (Keep reading Corona del Mar Today for details on the reopening festivities schedule.)
The Corona del Mar branch opened July 28, 1959. It nearly closed to make room to expand the next-door fire station, but residents protested and instead, the library will be celebrated. Read our earlier coverage here.
This summer, several longtime patrons have posted their most vivid memories of the library on a city website. Councilwoman Gardner wrote: “I remember a conversation with the librarian at what was then the new CdM branch. I was fifteen and reading ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ and she asked me what I thought of it. I said that all my friends thought it was so funny, but I thought it was sad. She said she thought it was sad, too, and that gave me a lot of confidence in my own critical judgment which was probably why I became an English major in college.”
Do you have memories of the Corona del Mar library branch? Leave us a comment and share them, please!
