The Richmond Library
WILL BE CLOSED
This Friday,
March 27th 2009
Sorry for any inconvenience
^Signage posted at said Library Branch^
More Library Info:
Group hissing over broken boiler that closed branch
The Eastwick Library Branch has been left out in the cold for almost two months now, and the Coalition to Save the Libraries believes the city is just telling stories.
Mayor Nutter tried to close Eastwick and 10 other branches in a cost-cutting move in December, but Judge Idee Fox thwarted him, ordering all the branches to remain open.
But the library coalition has learned that the Eastwick Library, at Island Avenue and Lindbergh Boulevard, had closed, despite the order.
The coalition sent a letter to Fox and Nutter on Friday demanding that the library be reopened, saying patrons were being deprived its valuable resources.
Kathleen Dougherty, assistant vice president of communications and development for the Free Library, said that the branch checked out of business on Jan. 24 due to a broken heating system.
"There is no money available for the repair in the city's capital budget," Dougherty said, noting that the building's boiler is what has kept library patrons out in the cold.
The coalition said it thought the city was using the broken boiler as an excuse.
"The City has used excuses like the inability to staff the library with sufficient security guards and the unwillingness to pay to fix the boiler," the letter reads.
Dougherty said that the branch will reopen when it's warmer.
"We are hopeful that we will be able to open sometime in April," she said, "but that will be weather-dependent."
Article written/reported by JESSICA BAUTISTA
Published Wed, Mar. 25, 2009
Page 6
Philadelphia Daily News