Guest Editorial: North Beach Needs a New LibraryCarol Verburgbyline‚ Jul. 27‚ 2009North Beach has changed. We gripe about that a lot in this neighborhood. Even if we're artists, and came here to be among fellow artists, and should know that nothing's more constant than change, we mind losing precious landmarks -– the hardware store, the corner grocery -- to one more upscale watering hole or boutique. And of course as artists, heirs of the Beat spirit and Americans, we cherish our right to complain. Now we're facing a huge change in a core neighborhood icon: the proposed new North Beach Branch Library. The library we know and love (and love to complain about) was built in 1959 on a corner of Joe DiMaggio Park, one of the city’s first community parks in San Francisco’s most densely populated neighborhood. For half a century now, many of us have grumbled that Mayor George Christopher made it too small and put it in the wrong place. |