SPOTLIGHT: Deborah Hallen, secretary of Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library
The Brooklyn Heights Branch Library and its allied support organization, the Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library Inc. have been much in the news lately, with the controversial proposal to sell the library property to a developer.
The Friends’ secretary, Deborah Hallen, agreed to discuss with this paper the history of the support organization, its role at the library, and her own roles at not only the library but in the community at large.
Long-time Brooklyn Heights residents may be familiar with Ms. Hallen from her career as a teacher at P.S. 8 in the Heights, where she started in 1987. In that role and as a long-time volunteer – at the Promenade garden; at the Children’s Room at the Brooklyn Family Justice Center’s Domestic Violence Unit; at Congregation B’nai Avraham; and at the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library – it seems Hallen is recognized almost wherever she goes in Brooklyn.