Monthly Archives: July 2011

7/2/11 – Dragging ourselves out of bed at 6 AM we photographed another shopping mall library and then grabbed two espressos at Starbucks as we left Abilene. We drove south through several towns until we reached Ballinger. We had made a ranking system while doing our research for the trip. A “?” meant maybe we would visit the library. No ranking meant a good library we would definitely visit. A “*” meant this was a top one to photograph. Ballinger’s * library was well deserved. It is a well preserved Carnegie that had the light coming from the wrong direction but I still made it work. We continued south and entered the fabled Texas Hill Country. Fredericksburg is a classic German Hill Country town that has struck gold with the tourist business. After the plain towns we had been in earlier the crowds and overtly cute, theme-park feel of Fredericksburg was a little hard to take. The saving grace was that the library there was originally built as the county court house. The impressive old two-story, rock-walled building made our stay here well worth it. Walker then drove us through the empty Hill Country straight to Luckenbach, TX. I expected it to be a regular small Texas town. Instead, it was filled with a huge crowd of bald bikers with beer bellies. We cranked up Waylon Jennings and got out of town as fast as possible. San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the United States with 2 1/2 million people. The Main Library is large, beautiful and very modern. We do a short visit to scope it out before photographing tomorrow. I also take a few quick photos at the classic branch library in Pedro Park. We are spending two nights at the Roadway Inn in downtown San Antonio. The parking lot seems very sketchy and there is a double deck freeway right next to us and lots of police action on the streets. But driving around San Antonio we see a lively city that knows how to have a good time. We are both exhausted so it was early to bed. Even the sounds of the sirens fade quickly as we crash.

7/3/11 – The San Antonio Main Library seems to function well as both a large, urban library and as a great example of modern architecture. The six stories are filled with people on this warm Sunday morning. Librarian Julia Selwyn is very helpful answering my questions about the library and San Antonio. The Dale Chihuly statue “Fiesta Tower” dominates the atrium and I spend time photographing it and the interior. I dreaded photographing the exterior because of the heat. I plunge into it and hop from one shady spot to the next setting up my view camera. Walker finally picked me up and we headed back to chill, blog and rest in our war-zone motel. Late afternoon finds us downtown on San Antonio’s famous River Walk. Built mostly by the New Deal’s WPA in the 1930s it is now a delightful meandering walkway along a canal through the heart of the city. Part of it is an intensely crowded commercial area but most of it is open, tree shaded and not crowded. The evening air and light are magical. It occurs to us that we are seeing another form of the commons. The River Walk is such an essential part of what makes San Antonio unique. Having the vision to make the investment in this wonderful system of canals and walkways created an economic attraction for this city. Thank you Franklin Roosevelt! A similar investment into our infrastructure would produce long-term benefits for the future as well. I never imagined I would see a connection between the New Deal and today’s libraries, but the the River Walk did it.

7/4/11 – Before leaving San Antonio Walker I decided to be tourists for one morning. The Alamo and the San Antonio Missions were really important to see and not as crowded as we feared. It was interesting to celebrate the 4th of July at the Alamo. The guides were both helpful and thoughtful and made me realize how well run this place is. He also told us how the Alamo and the Missions were all restored by the New Deal. Again, the long-term benefit of investing in the commons was enormous. Lockhart, TX is like Post, TX. They are both small gems with very beautiful libraries. The Dr. Eugene Clark library in Lockhart was the oldest continuously operating library in Texas. Both towns were also very hot and the region has had over 100 days of over 100 degree temperature. I photograph and melt under the mid-day sun while Walker goes off to stand in line at Blacks Bar-B-Q. This is another class Texas Bar-B-Q cafe owned by the same family since 1932. In the 1960s President Johnson used to get his Bar-B-Q catered in the White House from this place. The excellent heavy meal makes us groggy for most the afternoon, even after we arrive in Austin. The Ralph W. Yarborough branch library is classic Americana and photographing it in the heat somehow revived my weary mind. Located in the former Americana Theater building it still has a large sign in front that says “Americana”. As we drive around Austin we know we are not hungry but Amy’s Ice Cream hits a cool, soft spot. Our first exercise in over a week comes as we take a long walk in Zilker Park in the evening along Austin’s long Lady Bird Lake trail. As we gaze at the red sunset light reflecting off the new towers of downtown we fall in love with this place. The sweating joggers and hikers give this place a real vitality. Another example of a well-loved city where people invest in the common good such as this park. We had planned on saving money by staying in the University of Texas dorms. However, after spending one night we decide to leave tomorrow and head towards Dallas.

7/1/11 – The great thing about a trip like this are the surprises. We drove east through the flat farming country from Midland to Abilene. Most of the towns had seen better days but Post, TX was a surprise. Its library was squeezed in between a functioning movie theater and an office building. The town obviously took pride in itself and had the economic means to look good. Stamford, on the other hand, was more typical. A WalMart had moved to the edge of town several years ago. What had been a pleasant little downtown was nearly abandoned. There is currently an effort to revitalize the town but with agricultural prices dropping and the long, severe drought there is little money available to bring back civic life. Surprisingly, Stamford does possess a Carnegie Library which is celebrating its 100th birthday this week. Once the pride of the town the library is now located in the basement of the building. The rest has been chopped up into little meeting rooms which are now mostly abandoned. One of the few remaining groups regularly using the library is Alcoholics Anonymous. We met the  young librarian in the basement and it turns out she grew up in California and went to Parsons School of Design in New York City. Small world. She explained how the outside of the building had been wrapped in tin siding in the 1950’s to give it a more contemporary look. Fortunately, they had recently removed the front section to reveal the beautiful brick work that had  been lost. The destroyed Carnegie of Pecos and the neglected Carnegie of Stamford point to a loss of civic life and the shared commons. Church, family and sports become the only things left. A vital, functioning library seems to be a part of and the result of civic engagement. We end our drive in Abilene, one of the most conservative cities in America according to a recent survey. We are both hot and tired and have been working and driving non-stop for a week. After posting a blog in our air conditioned room we head out to photograph a branch library in a shopping mall. We decide to photograph the other library in a mall tomorrow morning when the light is better. As we drive around Abilene on Friday night after dinner we are struck by how completely empty the streets are of any people. Religious or conservative billboards are everywhere and Walker is having a field day snapping photos of them. Although Midland was similar, it had a vitality that this town lacks. Midland’s economy is once again booming due to the rise in the price of oil. Perhaps the pickup truck driving oil workers just wanna have more fun than the buttoned down conservatives of Abilene.

Moreno branch library, El Paso, TX

6/29/11 – Entering El Paso, TX we began a new chapter in our journey. El Paso and  Juarez, Mexico combined  form the largest city on the border. Juarez is currently the most violent city in the world, mostly from the drug wars. There are approximately eight murders there a day and almost 40,000 deaths in all of Mexico since 2006. Near the border we visited an El Paso branch library and later the downtown main library. After cooling off with water in a street side cafe  on the border, we watched the hard-working people of Juarez trudge back home carrying the goods bought in the US and later sold to the American tourists in Mexico. Chihuahuita is the fascinating neighborhood of El Paso on the border. The Chicano movement partly began here. It is almost entirely made up of poor Hispanics and some Asian merchants. We drove along the edge of he militarized border and eventually came to the Esperanza Acosta Moreno branch library in an affluent neighborhood on the edge of El Paso. After seeing the poor Mexicans in Chihuahuita it was surpising to see the wealthy Mexicans here living the American dream. Most of them moved here to escape the brutal violence of Juarez. Given this demographic shift, El Paso is becoming more Mexican and less Chicano. Their library was one of the most interesting modern libraries that we have seen so far.  Their kids were playing soccer and the ice cream truck was playing “La Cucaracha” in the 100 degree evening sun.

6/30/11 – As we leave El Paso we fill up the car and fuel up with coffee. Heading east we listen to Buck Owens and encounter the long, straight roads and desert mountains of the region. The name changes here from Tejas to Texas. After going through a Homeland Security checkpoint on the highway we drop down out of the higher desert to the flat plains We immediately experience our first humidity. We enter a vast open region that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the end of the Far West and the beginning of the Mid West. After several hours the coffee needs to be let out so we pull into the blasted-out town of Pecos to use the bathroom. We had not planned to photograph here because the library looked very plain on Google images. Thanks God for pit stops. The interior of the Pecos Library was crowded and fascinating and the librarian Sally Perry brought the story of Pecos to life. Originally, there had been a Carnegie library here but they tore it down. The new library was too small and they are looking to move. Sally explained how the downtown began to die when the WalMart opened and sucked the life out of the community. Sally was obviously interested in talking with us but, like all good librarians, went off to help a Hispanic grandmother and child instead. As always, the computers were all being used. I was looking forward to visiting the oil town of Midland, home of George and Laura Bush. Walker was not. The cowboy statue outside the Haley Library and History Center was kitchy enough to be great. But the main library in Midland turned out to be one of the best. The Librarian seemed indifferent at first but immediately smiled when I explained we were from San Francisco. She then opened the locked door to the Petroleum Archive Room which had an incredible mural of Midland with images of oil production and George Bush, Sr. prominently featured. I was like a kid in the a candy store. Later, Walker and I had dinner at KD’s Bar-B-Que. In the Texas spirit Fox News was on the big screen TV and photos of George Bush smiled down on us from the walls. My San Francisco presumptions were shaken as we had one of the best meals in recent memory. OMG!