Public library may face wrecking ball

After a year in limbo, the building housing the 40th and Walnut Street branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia will likely be demolished. But at the request of the library, the University is helping to find the branch a temporary -- and perhaps permanent -- home. Plans for minor renovations to the building last October were complicated when engineers discovered $4 million in water damage to the building. A year later, many civic leaders feel the building cannot be salvaged. "It looks like they won't [save the building]," said City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who represents the University City area."It's just not cost-effective enough to [repair]." "I think the library is absolutely set on demolishing [the building]," said Michael Hardy of the Off-Site Library Committee, a community advisory group. "Always the indication we've got is that they'd like to get rid of it." Hardy added that library officials have said a new building would cost about $2 million dollars -- an estimate he called optimistic. Whatever the outcome at 40th and Walnut streets, the immediate challenge is to re-open the library. The University will recommend "temporary as well as permanent locations" by the end of the month, said Jack Shannon, the University's top economic development official. Although Shannon said he has not yet compiled a "short list" of sites, many buildings under consideration are owned by Penn, including the Rotunda next to Burger King on Walnut Street and the former Divinity School Chapel and adjacent dean's house at 42nd and Spruce streets. There are problems, however, with both sites. The Rotunda is being used for student performing arts rehearsal space. And Shannon called the Divinity School too out-of-the-way, although it lies within the library's requested geographic boundaries for a site. The most important feature of any location is that it remain near to the walk-in foot traffic and bus-passenger traffic of Walnut Street, Head Library Administrator Judy Harvey said. "It's so residential once you get beyond those boundaries," she added. Adding to the difficulties is the library's limited funds. At a recent public meeting, library officials announced they had no money to pay rent, since they needed to save for a permanent site. And Harvey concedes the library will not get funding for a permanent site until 2000. "There seems to be talk about putting this building in use for five years, Hardy said. "That's a little more than temporary." But some local residents still advocate a return to a renovated building at 40th and Walnut. One neighborhood leader is skeptical of the library's fatalistic prognosis for the building. "Everything is fixable," said Beth Ann Johnson of Friends of Walnut West. "It costs money -- millions. And the library [system] is not used to spending millions on one building." Whether the building is restored or rebuilt entirely, many residents feel strongly about keeping the library at 40th and Walnut. "People in the community are taking the opinion that if they get a new building, they want it on [the former] site," Hardy said. "[But the library] may very well say, 'Let's find some other facility that we [could convert] that we could lease [permanently].'"

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