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McAllen's main library closes today after 61 years
For more about McAllen's library transition, visit Facebook.com/McAllenLibrary.
Some of you shared your memories of the old library with us on Facebook. Here are some of your thoughts:
I remember seeing "WPA" stamped on the sidewalks around there---on the south side. Found out it was part of the Works Program started during the Depression. Every time this subject comes up, I flashback to that memory. I was still in elementary school at the time & funnily enough, I can still see my foot on that piece of sidewalk next to the "WPA" stamp. i also found the book I won in 1972 for reading the most books in the Summer Reading Program--Little House on the Prairie :)
-KELLY FITZGERALD, 49, now a managing attorney at a law firm in Laredo
When I was a boy in the 1970's, children under 12 were not even permitted in the adult areas without a grownup. One lady in particular, whose name was Vesta Stifel, was very good at keeping order....I will never forget the staircases in that library, as it was one of the few multilevel buildings in "old" McAllen. In the early 80's, even though VCRs were already in people's homes, the library showed movies....on film....every Sunday afternoon in the meeting room. They were 16mm prints of classics like "African Queen" and "Cheaper By the Dozen".
-JEFF MARQUIS, now living in Plano
I used to meet my boyfriend (later my husband) at the library where Iwas supposed to be studying...we would go for a ride around town and then come back to the library. I got in so much trouble for that! :)
-SANDRA VARNELL, McHI GRADUATE 1964, NOW LIVES IN SHREVEPORT, LA.
What ever happen to mrs ziglar.. Don't think she would still be alive, but I can still hear her voice and story telling. ... she was a little old skinny lady that was the librarian at seguin elementary and ran the public library also during the late 70s,80s and probally 90s also.
-OSCAR LOZANO FLORES, 34, McALLEN
As my mother took me and my six brothers and sisters to the McAllen Public Library for story time, so did I in turn take all three of my children to the library for story time. Every summer I registered them for the summer reading program. From generation to generation a love of reading, a love for learning was instilled in us through the public library.
-ROSALIE WEISFELD, McALLEN HIGH GRADUATE STILL IN McALLEN
McALLEN — The McAllen Memorial Library, a fixture on Main Street for more than 61 years, will close its doors at 6 p.m. tonight, never to re-open — at least as a library.
If all goes according to plan, McAllen’s new library near the intersection of 23rd Street and Nolana Avenue will open at 10 a.m. on Dec. 10. At 123,000 square feet, the new library is more than three times larger than the Memorial Library at 601 N. Main St.
First, though, McAllen must move the library’s 250,000-item collection across town.
Library Design Systems of Houston plans to send two trucks and a moving crew to McAllen on Friday, when they’ll start moving the books across town, said Library Director Jose Gamez.
Movers expect to work Nov. 25-Dec. 5 for everything to find a place on the new library’s shelves. McAllen agreed to pay Library Design Systems, which specializes in moving libraries, $37,324.70 to handle the move.
While McAllen’s new library offers a slew of amenities, ranging from a larger computer lab to a coffee shop, the move remains bittersweet for many with fond memories of the Memorial Library, which has been a gathering place and city resource for six decades.
Sylvia Marichalar started working at Memorial Library as a loan desk assistant on Nov. 7, 1983, when the library had just begun adding bar codes to the collection. After 26 years, she left to become the branch manager at McAllen’s Palm View Branch Library in 2009.
“I worked there for so long that I saw babies who would go for story time back in the ’80s grow up into successful adults,” Marichalar said. “I saw older people, Winter Texans, use the library so much. I saw people get old. I got old there.”
Years later, Marichalar said she has occasionally run into those people, now successful lawyers, engineers and other professionals, around town.
“And they would tell me ‘I remember when I was little, and I would go to the main library.’ And they attributed their success to all the days that they spent there,” Marichalar said, her voice cracking with emotion.
The Memorial Library has grown with McAllen over the past 60 years, starting off as a smaller, one-story building in 1950, when the census counted 20,067 residents. By 2010, the Memorial Library had grown to a 40,000 square-foot, three-story building tasked with serving 129,877 residents.
Elena Alanis said she’s been visiting the Memorial Library since it opened.
As a fourth- or fifth-grader, Alanis rode her bicycle to the library after school to read. Today, the 73-year-old retired bookkeeper lives across Main Street from library, where she was reading a copy Thursday of the San Antonio Express-News.
“I wish they’d leave a branch or something,” Alanis said, adding that, without a car, she’ll probably take the bus across town to visit the new library, but will probably spend less time there.
“But things change,” Alanis said.
While McAllen’s elected officials have discussed turning the building into an art incubator overseen by the Chamber of Commerce, they haven’t finalized that plan.
It’ll probably take several hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate the building, said City Manager Mike Perez, adding that the windows need work and the carpet likely will be replaced.
Perez said someone — who he declined to name because the conversation was private — had proposed building a boutique hotel and restaurant on the property, but hadn’t submitted a formal letter of intent or other proposal.
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Dave Hendricks covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at dhendricks@themonitor.com and at (956) 683-4452.
