Library Road Trip

8/7/11 – This week has mostly been taken up with rest, relaxation and family. After working almost non-stop at Earth Island Institute Ellen is at long last enjoying a well-deserved vacation. After our non-stop, cross- country journey Walker and I are chilln’ at the Farm with Ellen. We do have electricity here but no internet access. We are beginning to really appreciate one of the great assets of public libraries – free access to computers and the internet. I posted the last blog from Hanover, New Hampshire’s wonderful Howe Library. But this week has mostly been learning how to shift gears from flat-out to stop. It takes a while to relearn how to appreciate just watching the grass grow, seeing the clouds float by or hearing the quiet sounds of the New England forests that surround our cabin. During the week we have our annual Farm business meeting with other members of Ellen’s family. The downpour that followed was spectacular. We have a favorite roadside café called Sandys that we go to later in the week in nearby Sharon, VT. As we drove by the public library in Sharon we used their free wifi to check our email. As we drove into Sandys we are thrilled to learn that we had reached our goal of $8,000 on Kickstarter. Although it won’t pay for all the expenses of this summer trip it will pay for most of them. We celebrated by getting ice cream cones and Walker got

sprinkles on his. I want to thank all of our generous supporters who made this trip possible. It was a gamble not knowing when we started if we would reach our goal. Kickstarter made reaching the goal important by making it all or nothing. But it paid off and now I know this project will become a reality. Finally, New England has a long history of visionary, progressive thinkers. One of them was the 19^th Century U.S. Senator Justin Morrill who happened to grow up in the tiny, nearby town of Stafford, VT. Among his accomplishments was starting the system of Land Grant Colleges in the United States. His family was too poor to send him to college. Because he saw the need he later established these high quality, low cost colleges in each state of the Union. His goal was to provide free access to information for everyone that wanted the chance of improving one’s life. The small Justin Morrill Library in rural Stafford has free wifi that is available 24/7. Like many of the small, rural libraries we saw on the trip this is the only place for miles to connect to the internet. I photographed Walker in our car with the glow of the computer screen on his face using the free access to information from the darkened library. I imagined that Justin Morrill would be pleased.

7/31/11 – The Fishtown branch library in Philadelphia is special. As I am photographing outside an old biker-looking guy came over and explained that his mother helped save the library from becoming a parking lot for the nearby police station. When the library was rededicated the mayor of Philadelphia came over and offered to give his mother a ride in his limo. She refused choosing to walk the one block instead. Classic! The Kensington branch was in one of the diciest neighborhoods of the trip. My medium format color camera had died in the heat of Detroit. Because this had to be a color photograph I had to photograph with the slow 4X5 camera. Walker hovered protectively and watched my back as I went under the dark cloth. Tough looking guys were beginning to gather on all corners of the street as I quickly took the photo and jumped back in the car. We skipped another library in this same rough neighborhood and drove to The Free Library of Philadelphia. This massive, elegant Main library was also a little faded. I spent three hours photographing its beauty and the content of its character. Ellen was back in our hotel working on another Kickstarter blast to help keep this project funded. Walker and I drove over to Camden, New Jersey to photograph their closed Main Library. Camden is one of the few large cities in the country to close its entire library system. It has had a tough time recently with economic collapse and a famously corrupt city government. We saw the results of this in the closed library.

8/1/11 – As we had breakfast with out friend Stuart Rome and his family Walker took a bus to New York to hunt for an apartment for next year. Ellen and I made a quick stop in down-and-out Newark, NJ. I took what may be two good, quick shots of the exterior and then headed north to beat the traffic. We got past New York City and encountered an epic thunder and lighting storm near Waterbury, Connecticut. I skipped the library there and later we had to pull off the road to let this mega-storm pass. The last library I photographed in the fading light was in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. This was where our dear friend Leslie Leslie grew up. This small, patrician New England town was also part of the 19th Century Underground Railroad. It seemed appropriate to end this part of the  project here. We then drove several more hours to our little cabin in the Vermont woods that we call the Farm arriving at 11 PM. Exhausted but happy I looked back on this amazing journey. We had photographed over 180 public libraries in 39 days. We visited 19 states and drove 9,450 miles. I will continue to photograph libraries in New England and New York over the next three weeks. But arriving at the Farm was the end of the big, non-stop push. We are off the grid at the Farm but I will continue to post blogs intermittently from the Howe Public Library in Hanover, New Hampshire. This is considered one of the best small public libraries in the country and Ellen’s family from the area has been heavily involved with the library. Walker and I both feel very positive about our public library system throughout the country despite the many problems. We will write more about these insights in the next few weeks. We also feel very positive about our country despite its problems. Most of the folks we met were hard-working people that loved their public libraries. In our divisive country this is one this we can all share.

7/29/11 – North of DC is the planned community of Greenbelt, MD. It was built by the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression. Eleanor Roosevelt took a special interest in it and visited several times. The town was built for unemployed workers from large urban slums. People had to apply to get in and it was considered a very desirable place for poor people to live. Roosevelt was sharply criticized for these few experiments in urban planning for being socialistic. The original library was built in a community center which still stands today with wonderful bas-relief sculpture on the outside. The contemporary library was built in the the 1970s and had a brutal exterior. Walker and I later had a long discussion on why a trained architect would design such a building, especially since it is surrounded by wonderful art-deco architecture and art. We stopped by the New Deal Cafe where I bought a great t-shirt. Later, as we reached Baltimore the temperature hit 104 degrees and the humidity was off the charts. We linger in our AC motel unwilling to face the heat one more time. Finally, we dragged ourselves downtown to the Enoch Pratt Free Library. This large urban library turned out to be another gem. I spent an hour and a half happily running from floor to floor. I first scouted out sites with my small digital camera. Then I was more efficient photographing with my large, heavy 4X5 camera and tripod. After the library closed I photographed the interesting Orleans Street branch library. We then went to the famous Baltimore landmark O’Brickies for some excellent seafood. Baltimore is another fascinating East Coast working-class city. We were warned how dangerous it was but we found it to be a vital, dynamic community. It is true that it filled with eccentrics and artists. Any town that is home to Edgar Allen Poe and John Waters has to be an original. It was refreshing to see it successfully reinventing itself. After a quick after-dinner walk in the heat by the harbor we end the evening changing film and blogging.

7/30/11 – The Main library in Baltimore had so much that I decided to return again this morning. On the way we stopped at the Canton branch library. It too is an unexpected gem and the librarian explained that this is one of the oldest branch libraries in the United States. Enoch Pratt, the philanthropist who endowed the Baltimore Library system took special interest in this branch. Later, I photographed several of the special areas in the Main Library including the Chess Room, the jazz sheet music collection and the computer room. I wanted to photograph in the Edgar Allen Poe Room but is was completely booked with various groups during the time I was there. We moved on to Wilmington, Delaware where I photographed the grand but poor Main Library. Downtown Wilmington seemed very nice but the park in front of the library seemed to be a center for the poor, the homeless and the crazies. I wondered how this city worked. We drove north to Darby, PA which is a poor, family-centered, African-American community outside of Philadelphia. Founded  in 1743 the Darby Free Library claimed to be the oldest library in the nation. Tragically, it recently closed due to budget cuts. However, when we arrived it seemed open again although not on this Saturday. We ended our day by driving into the fascinating city of Philadelphia. The outlying neighborhoods were richly diverse. We drove by a park filled with African women wearing burkas next to a Vietnamese restaurant. After checking in to our hotel Walker and I gladly left our car parked and used public transportation to explore this incredible city. We ate dinner at Ginos which is one of the Philadelphia’s famous Philly Cheese Steak places. Walker got his with Cheeze Wiz. I couldn’t  handle that and went for the pork sandwich instead. We gradually realized this place is owned by a Glen Beck favorite, Joey Vento. Patriotic music was blaring over he loudspeaker and the Marine Corps Hymn keeps playing over and over while we eat. It would almost have been funny if it weren’t so creepy. We learned later that Vento had been accused of having mafia connections too. We got out of there ASAP and walked

through the evening heat on the streets of Philadelphia. Walker takes me over to historic Library Hall. I feel a deep patriotic emotion here having just crossed the country and having been to our nation’s capitol. It is interesting to contrast my emotions with the cheesy, immigrant-bashing, hyper patriotism of Joey Vento. Walker and I love this city but see some of its complexity as well. We drove to the airport and pick up my wife Ellen Manchester. She will join us for the rest of the trip.

7/26/11 – Yesterday was pretty full and today we needed to make some miles. The tiny library in Brownsville, PA had massive columns in front that had been recycled from a bank when the bank went under during the Great Depression. Despite how bad things were here now the librarian said that the library had survived the Depression and she vowed that her library wasn’t going to close now. The Carnegie library in Connellsville, PA was still impressive despite its faded condition. We proceeded along one of the great drives of the trip through southern Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and into Maryland and Virginia. We were in the cradle of the Civil War. We ended our long drive in the beautiful farm country around Harpers Ferry, WV. Our last library of the day was in Shepherdstown, WV and it was one of the best so far. It is a unique small building nestled between two taller brick buildings and two streets. We found out later that it had been a market that opened up on to the streets. We drove through Harpers Ferry and felt the full impact of the Civil War in this historically important small town.

7/27/11 – Shepherstown was so interesting that we went back again to photograph in the morning light. We also met the delightful librarians who told us the story of this special place. So much history has occurred in this area. The National Historic Park in nearby Antietum was a moving memorial to the devastation of that Civil War battle. President Lincoln used the partial success of this battle to declare the Empancipation Proclamation and to prevent England from recognizing the Confederacy. We also stopped at another Civil War battle site in Sharpsburg. I photographed the library there which had several war memorials on the front lawn. Again, libraries function as a center for memory including the memory of fallen soliders from the past and present. We drove to Winchester, VA to photograph the Handley Regional Library. It is a stunning piece of architecture built by a Confederate sympathizer after the war. I was surprised to see several portraits of Confederate heroes in the library and wondered what the African American patrons thought when they saw these paintings on the walls. After the town of Leesburg, VA we feel ourselves getting sucked into the vortex of Washington, DC. In some ways our trip ended as we drove to the Capitol Mall to pick up our friend Jeff Gates and his daughter Lilly. Although we still have many  more days left on our trip there was a sense of completion having crossed the country and arriving at our nation’s Capitol.

7/28/11 – We stayed with Jeff , his wife Susie and their other daughter Eve outside of Washington. Today was significant because I showed by photographs to Verna Curtis who is a curator at the Library of Congress. When I arrived with Walker for my appointment, Verna had included several other important people connected to the Prints and Photographs Division. It felt excellent to show this older work but I kept thinking of the new work produced over the last five weeks during this library road trip. We have photographed over 200 libraries in 18 states driving 8,700 miles so far. After the meeting Verna Curtis took us on a quick tour of the Library of Congress. I was in awe. Standing in our national library I felt proud of our nation-wide system of public libraries. I felt this project is a small step at honoring that system. We photographed in the spectacular lobby of the Library of Congress. Walker and I left Capitol Hill and to photograph two branch libraries in DC. The Anacostia library is in a rough neighborhood but is new and is

a green library. The Shaw branch library is also new and, as we have seen across the country, filled with people.

7//25/11 – Pittsburgh, PA is a unique city. Situated at the junction of three rivers it has mountains, cliffs, cable cars, a hip European feel. It is both old world and also a city reinventing itself after its economy collapsed in the 1980s. The Pittsburgh area was where Andrew Carnegie built his first libraries in the U.S. These libraries were the beginning of the 1,600+ library system he built nation-wide. Because they were the first he built them in ways very different from the later Carnegie libraries. They originally were built for his workers to have a place to relax, recreate and to better themselves through lecturers, performances and, of course, books. Carnegie himself, as a young lad from Scotland was introduced to the idea of self improvement through books by being allowed access to the private library of a wealthy industrialist in Pittsburgh. Young Carnegie vowed that if he every made a lot of money he would do the same later in his life. He wound up giving away approximately 70% of his vast fortune, mostly for creating his libraries. Of course, many of his workers wished he had created better working conditions and salaries in his steel mills while he was making his money rather than giving it to create libraries at the end of his life. We arrived at our first Carnegie library of the day in Allegheny. We were shocked to find a new, rather ordinary looking library. The librarian explained that the original Carnegie had been struck by lighting a few years ago and it had fried the library’s electrical system. It now housed a Senior Citizens Center. We found it was closed and it looked abandoned. Outside was a statue that perfectly summarized Carnegie’s ideal for his libraries. It portrayed a bare-chested young worker sitting on an anvil reading a book. The Carnegie library in Homestead had all the elements of these early Carnegies including a concert hall, an indoor pool, an indoor gym and, of course, many reading rooms. Surprisingly, it had a hot, humid, run down feeling to it. When the steel mills shut down this area was left to carry on without the previous support. We finally arrived at the first American Carnegie library in Braddock. It was even more run down than Homestead and the librarian told me that the previous librarian had struggled to keep it from being closed. She gave me a wonderful tour and then turned me loose to photograph Carnegie’s vision and its decay in the heat and humidity. Walker and I decided to make a few, quick photos of the exterior of this important landmark. The street in front seemed sketchy but Walker was covering my back from the steps nearby. While I was under the dark cloth I saw a hand reach in and try to grab my 4X5 camera. I immediately grabbed the hand and shouted “Don’t do that!” I came out from under the dark cloth and was immediately punched in the jaw by an older, crazed, drug addict who  thought I had taken his picture. I was stunned but Walker and I quickly screamed the guy down and he slowly walked away, muttering darkly. We were lucky that it hadn’t escalated into something worse. The librarian happened to drive by right after the fight and asked if we were OK. We sort of laughed it off but got out of Braddock ASAP. After photographing the McKeesport Carnegie we ended the day at the Main Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. This is a beautiful, grand library that I didn’t have the time to do it justice. We ended this memorable day having a delightful dinner with my niece Phoebe Manchester and her partner Mary Burke. Although we are exhausted the fascinating conversation kept us up until the wee hours.

Recently completed video from the Mississippi Delta. Video by Nick Neumann

Worst temp ever, Detroit, MI

7/21/11 – Understandably, we had to go through several layers of security to be able to photograph in the Main Library in Detroit. However, it was worth it. The library was built when Detroit had the intention of being a world class city. The sudden end of that dream had left a mostly devastated city with a top notch library. According to an article in Huntington Post 50% of Detroit’s population is functionally illiterate. Miles and miles of the city are in ruins. It is the poorest city in the U.S. and one of the most dangerous in the world. Librarian Jeanne Salatheiel took me on a quick tour that brought the library to life. The grand hallways, the beautiful murals, the great collections collectively showed a portrait from another era. Today was the highest recorded temperature for any July 21st in the history of Detroit. Although the library had AC it was hot, even inside. I spent several happily hours photographing this great institution. We then plunged in to the record-breaking heat and humidity. We photographed four branch libraries throughout Detroit. Two were abandoned and two were functioning. Every library in Detroit had an armed security guard that greeted us as we entered. The Benjamin Franklin branch library was a refuge from the brutal heat and violence outside. Not surprisingly, it was filled to capacity. I spent an hour carefully photographing this tough but amazing place. One of the abandoned libraries was located next to a car wash. The owner of the car wash came out and explained that after the library closed it was a methadone clinic for many years before being abandoned. We headed back to our hostel in Windsor, Canada. We needed to escape the heat and chaos. We spent many hours working on our blogs and vlogs. Windsor surprised us for it normalcy compared to the insanity of Detroit. The two cities are only separated by the Detroit River but Windsor felt relaxed and European compared to where we had been.

7/22/11 – After doing a quick tour of Detroit’s magnificent downtown core we continued to photograph branch libraries. It was a good way of seeing a wide range of Detroit and we were amazed at the scale of the devastation. The Mark Twain branch library had been temporarily housed in the basement of a church for the last seven years. Today was slightly cooler than yesterday but the crowded library was stifling. The AC had been broken for the last hew weeks during this record heat wave so large fans moved the air around the library. We drove to the beautiful but now ruined and abandoned original Mark Twain branch. Taken together the two will tell an interesting part of libraries in Detroit.

We sadly said good by to Nick after dropping him off at his grandfather’s house outside of Detroit. Later, I photographed the beautiful library in Howell, MI. It is located in what used to be the heart of the Michigan Militia Movement. The downtown had been gentrified. We end our day in East Lansing where we stayed with the Amber family. Jake is Walker’s roommate in New York. Ben and Rachel have become new friends for us and we share a lot in common including politics.

7/23/11 – We drove east for four hours stopping only to photograph a library in Norwalk, OH. We arrived at 3 PM in Cleveland and drove immediately to the Main Library downtown. Librarian Michael Ruffing took me on a wonderfully thorough tour of the seven floors of the new and old parts of this amazing library. I was sweating carrying my 4X5 camera and tripod going up and down narrow staircases and even going to roof. His enthusiasm again brought the place alive. He turned me loose to spend the next 2 1/2 hours feeling like a kid in a candy store. Cleveland’s library is one of the best so far. The quality of the library suggests a wealthier Cleveland in the past. It has suffered through hard times losing 2/3 of its population over the last 50 years. The flight of manufacturing jobs had hurt a lot of people here. However, Walker and I really liked the city and wish it well.

Book sculpture, Main library, Cincinatti, OH

7/19/11 – We were all tired and slept in a little this morning. Walker was fighting a cold so he slept in a little more. We drove into Cincinatti and almost missed the the huge Main Library. Fortunately, Nick noticed a striking sculpture/waterfall in front made of ceramic books. Ohio is known for having one of the best library systems in the country. I photographed four out of the six Carnegie libraries in town. At the Avondale branch an older African American woman explained that this library has only six computers for a large neighborhood. When the children come in after school the adults have to leave. I promised that I would write about this on my blog. We drive west and north to the western Ohio farm country. I find it extraordinarily beautiful but Walker and Nick seemed overwhelmed with the heat and exhaustion. They find the tidy farming communities boring after the edgy places we have been. The Brumbach library in Van Wert is striking because it is built like a castle with a turret. The library in Defiance is made of beautiful red rock and had some wonderful details. Finally the library in Wauson looks like a New England library with dormer windows on the roof. As I finish photographing the last light, the town was finishing its hot rod competition the next street over. We drove on into the late dusk light until we reach Toledo.

7/20/11 – Groggy from our long drives and lack of sleep we shook ourselves awake in our Days (daze) Inn. We decided to film a day in the life of the project today. As we were carrying our huge load of equipment, luggage and film down the extraordinarily long hallway of this fleabag motel we come upon a man completely passed out on the floor of the hallway. Nick film us as we have to step over him on our way to our car. I have a wonderful time photographing in the fantastic Main Library in Toledo. The library seemed very well organized and the  Marketing Manager Susan Gibney had sent around a link to my web site to all the staff. As a result everyone knew all about me and the project and were very helpful. The interior lobby is one of the best examples of deco-era art and architecture I have seen in any library. It was also a New Deal project. There were so many fascinating parts to this library that I had to ration my time. That didn’t stop me from photographing an entire auditorium of squirming little kids watching “Getting Silly With Captain Willie”.

It is utter chaos and I have great hope for this image. It was an hour drive to Dearborn, MI. Nick and Walker decided to interview me as I drive into Michigan. It is a good chance to capture my history of the project and to recap this trip so far. I briefly photographed the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn. For the first time I began to experience mechanical problems with my Mamiya 7 camera. I think it is because of the unrelenting heat. It has been really hard on us but it can fry electrical systems in cameras. Finally, we arrived in Detroit, a city whose economy has collapsed for large parts of the population. I photographed the extraordinary mural and entrance of the Main Library. I will do the interior tomorrow but I walked through the inside to scout out locations. It was rich! We escaped across the border into Windsor, Canada. We stayed in a hostel at the University of Windsor which was cheaper and safer than staying in Detroit.

Bob photographing the Main Library, Detroit, MI

Walker looking at Detroit, MI

Nick tired, looking at Detroit, MI

7/15/11 – We had photographed the exterior of the new and old Carnegie combination library in Clarksdale yesterday evening. I wanted to see the interior and talk to the librarians today when they were open. The first librarian I met was Phillip Carter, the Reference Librarian. He was the outstanding blues guitarist we heard last night at Ground Zero. This confirmed the saying that real musicians have day jobs. He too enthusiastically brought the community alive. We discussed local history, notable personalities and, of course, music. I advised him on archival storage of some of their decaying collection. He brought out a wonderful old photograph of a high school band. I took a photo of it in the fascinating Mississippi Room. I also photographed an incredible display of artifacts from the ancient Mississippi Mound culture. Upstairs in the Children’s Library I photographed a giant dugout canoe and some very beautiful stained glass, both by local artists. The wonderfully informative Children’s Librarian explained how the nearby Delta Blues Museum started as a project of this library and originally was housed in this room. Reluctantly, we pulled ourselves away from Clarkdale’s amazing library and once again hit the road. We drove north to Helena, AR where the librarian in their new library explained that they have the oldest continuously running library system in the country. The old library would have been too expensive to retrofit and brought up to code. It is now closed but I photographed this wonderful pink rock building attached to a museum. We left the Delta and transitioned to regular America in Oxford, MS. The nice roads and malls are a little hard to take after the Delta. I wanted to include in this project libraries in the home towns of great American writers. Oxford was home to William Falkner. Mississippi has produced many great musicians and writers. As I set up my 4X5 camera in a room full of books done by many of these great Southern  authors, an old man with white hair wearing a white shirt and white shorts sat down in front of me to read the paper. The light reflected perfectly off his hair and fortunately he didn’t move during my 8 second exposure. This photo was an unexpected gift. We arrive at the Main Library in Memphis, TN just as they were closing. It was large, beautiful and new. I managed to make a nice shot of the front with large back-lit clouds above it. We drove through a very rough neighborhood to get to the South branch library located in a mall. Our last library was the Cossett branch library in downtown Memphis. It is a combination library with the old and new libraries connected. The old is quite beautiful and looks down on the Mississippi River below. The new library is probably more functional but looks like 1960s architecture run amok. We checked in to our motel and looked forward to a quick swim in the pool. However, we were very excited about our change of plans. Instead of staying in Cairo, IL tomorrow we decided to push on to Louisville, KY. That would allow us to drive through eastern Kentucky the following day. I posted a new blog while Nick and Walker worked on editing their film and photos. By the time we are done the pool was closed. We headed downtown for dinner on Beale Street. It reminded me of Burbon St. in New Orleans, but not quite as crazy. Lots of drunk people were wandering around but some good live bands played on the street. In our rush to find food we miss what looked like a really interesting photo exhibit on the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike where Martin Luther King was killed. We drive home in the hot, humid night listening to the song “Its Hard Out Here For A Pimp” which was set in Memphis. We then work for another hour and collapsed asleep at 1 AM.

7/16/11 – Today we drove long distances but only photographed two libraries. Because we were trying to get to the library in Evansville, Indiana before it closed at 5 we sadly missed the Civil Rights Museum as well as the Sun and Stax Record Studios in Memphis. An odd little library was in Halls, TN. It used to be a gas station but was successfully converted into a nice library. We drove on through beautiful farm land as I took my first nap on the trip. Nick and Walker were deep into conversation about their earlier trip to India. We arrived

Willard Library, Evansville, IN

at the Willard Library at 3:30 so I had an hour and a half to photograph the most beautiful library so far. In addition it is the only library that is haunted. We are told that the ghost likes to hang out in the basement and in one corner of the third floor. I think I see her but I’m not sure. The library is incredibly beautiful and I had to carefully pace myself to be able to photograph all of the interior before closing time. Right at 5:00 I exited the library and proceeded to spend another hour photographing the amazing exterior. This library and a few other civic buildings downtown suggest a wealthier, more exuberant Evansville than we see today. Walker and Nick felt this is the least interesting town so far. We drove several more hours through beautiful rolling farmland to Louisville, KY.