By Justine Schwartz
For Brooklyn Daily Eagle
I am a regular patron at the Brooklyn Heights library at Cadman Plaza West. Every morning there are herds of people waiting for the doors to be thrown open, and like hungry cattle we all rush in, anxious to grab a seat. Library attendance has had a 59 percent attendance increase in the past decade. Brooklyn Public Library CEO Linda Johnson approves plans on removing the Business Library, which is located in the same building, selling off the entire building to a private developer who will try to build the tallest building that he can. In return the library patrons will be awarded a "Cozy Space" (one fourth the size), for which the Brooklyn Public Library system will be billed. The monies that result from the sale of library branches go into the city's treasury and not for any upgrade of the still-remaining libraries.
Please fix the air conditioning and don't destroy our precious Cadman Plaza Library, which is my second home.
The selling off of the libraries because they are valuable real estate is unfair, detrimental, and just plain wrong for our citizenry. We, the people, are also suffering our hospitals to be shut down and sold and now it is our libraries. I wonder when the city will get to selling off our churches and synagogues.
Justine Swartz
Brooklyn Heights
