This section includes the Youth Wing, which is located on the Eastern Parkway side of the library on the first floor. Feel free to walk around as you listen.
Done with this section of the tour? The next stop is the Second Floor.
- Hear more about the history of children in Brooklyn's libraries, and the history of the Internet at BPL, starting with Bill Gates's visit to Central Library.
- Read more about the artists who created the murals in the Youth Wing.
- Want even more images of Central Library? Check out our slide show of historic photos.
- Interested in another audio walking tour? Explore our other self-guided audio walking tour of literary Brooklyn.
Episode Transcript
You are listening to the Brooklyn Public Library audio tour of the Central Library. I am Norman Erickson and I have been a librarian here at the Central Building for over 30 years. I have led tours of the buildings for patrons and staff for many, many years. Now we are bringing you a bit of that tour in a self-guided audio format. This section includes the Youth Wing, which is located on the Eastern Parkway side of the library on the first floor. Feel free to walk around as you listen.
Now in 1941, the front of the room, which is now part of the Young Adult materials area, was called the Ingersoll Room. It was originally where the Music Collection was stored in 1941. Then it became the Ingersoll Reading Room in the 1960s and the 1970s. Then from the 1970s up until the year 2000 or so, it was the Education Job Information Center. There is a portrait of Mr. Raymond Ingersoll in the room. You'll have to go into the room, when you're in that archway, staring straight to the front of the building, turn around and look up in a corner. You'll see an oil painting of Mr. Raymond Ingersoll. The space between the Ingersoll Room and the other end of the room was the Central Registration Department, which was where we processed all the paperwork for your library card, the Senior Reading Room, and then there was a wall of bookcases that separated the Junior Reading Room from the rest of the building.
Up until 1955, children were not allowed in the main part of the building. The reason was this was a reference research library. Now, young adults could use the rest of the building, provided they got a pink permission slip from the librarian, which they had to show when they went into the other part of the building. 1955: the wall comes down, we rearrange. The teens get their own space upstairs on the balcony on the second floor.
Now, as you walk around the room here, you'll notice in the middle of the room is a large fixture that's called the Tech Loft. When we first got computers in this building in 1997, the first twelve computers were located in the Ingersoll Room as part of the Education Job Information Center. They were a grant from Microsoft's Libraries Online project. October of 1997 was a press conference that held Bill Gates, the mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, and many other public notables. Security that day was crazy.
Now, at the back of the room, there's the doorway that leads you outside. There are two restrooms and then a space we called the Lower Programing Room, which was originally the work room for the children's librarians. And then on the second floor, you see a little mezzanine—we call that the Upper Programing Room. Currently, it is a programing space and an office. If you look at the wall on the walls along Eastern Parkway, so you'll see a wonderful series of murals. This was put up in 2018. It's the story of a book traveling. Information on the murals and the artists who created them is part of our website.
If you look through the windows out into the parking lot, you'll see not much—some cars and the bookmobile and other fun things. You'll see the wall that's Mount Prospect Park, and if you stand in the parking lot, you'll actually see the remnants of the 1911 building. One side of the building was built on Flatbush Avenue was four stories. And this is where the pigeons used to roost.
We're now standing here in the Youth Wing. Let's head towards the front of the Youth Wing, go through the doorway and there's a set of elevators. We can take them upstairs to the second floor.
This is the end of the fourth stop on BPL's Central Audio Tour. The next stop on our tour is the second floor. Just outside the History, Biography & Religion department on the second floor, you'll find a small blue plaque with a QR code that you can scan when you're ready to listen to the next installment. Or, you can navigate to our web page to find the next stop.
This tour was narrated by Norman Eriksen, and conceived by Norman Eriksen and LaCresha Neal. It was produced by Virginia Marshall, LaCresha Neal, Jennifer Proffitt, and Laurie Elvove, with help from Natiba Guy-Clement, Brynna Ververs, Caroline Hartman, and Mary Dickson.