Brooklyn, NY – Budget Cuts Prompts Public Libraries To Close On Sundays In Jewish Neighborhoods

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    Brooklyn, NY – Faced with massive budget cuts, the Brooklyn Public Library has quietly closed its doors on Sundays.

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    Five branches around the borough and the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza ended the seventh day of service in early January.

    Many of the branches that lost Sunday hours were in Jewish neighborhoods such as Borough Park, Midwood and Kensington, where patrons observe Saturday Sabbath.

    “It’s so bad. . . . I participate in Shabbos [Sabbath] on Saturday, and the rabbi would be very angry if I went to the library,” Nachman Rosten, 27, said yesterday outside the Midwood branch on E. 16th St.

    “I don’t have the Internet at home, so I do my usual routine at the library on Sundays,” said Rosten, “like pay my bills, send personal e-mails or check the weather.”

    The cuts are designed to save BPL $800,000 a year, said BPL spokeswoman Malika Granville. The city’s three library systems are facing a 7% cut in Mayor Bloomberg’s 2010 budget.

    Library staff are paid overtime for Sundays, making it “our most expensive day,” said Granville. “We didn’t target any particular neighborhood or any particular population.”

    Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Borough Park) said he has managed to persuade the U.S. Postal Service to keep its doors open on Sundays in Borough Park, but hasn’t succeeded with BPL officials.

    “In our neighborhood, being open on Saturday is like a vacation for the people that work there,” said Hikind, “because the fact is 90-plus percent of the people in Borough Park are Sabbath observers,” he said.

    “I understand there are budget cuts, but you have to do it in a way that makes sense.”

    In other neighborhoods affected by the Sunday service cut, library patrons lamented the loss of a weekend day when they have time to visit or need some family fun. The cuts also affect the Flatbush and McKinley Park branches.

    “When you have a baby or toddler, there are very few places you can go on the weekend when the weather is bad,” said Park Slope mom Nina Franz, visiting the Central Library with her 19-month-old son, Anderson.

    “It’s a disappointment. Even just reduced hours would have been great. He loves this place.”

    For Canarsie mom Sonia Gilkes, who home-schools her daughter Aliah, 9, the Central Library is a place to get away from school setting on the weekends.

    “I just wish it didn’t have to happen,” she said. “After a long week, I just want to relax.”

    New York Public Library has not cut services at its libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx.

    The Queens Public Library cut back to six days at two library branches in September. Two Queens branches are still open seven days a week.


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    19 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Why are the Kensington and Midwood branches not closed on Saturday and open on Sunday? Same difference!!

    robroy560
    robroy560
    15 years ago

    What’s the big deal? I thought the rabbeim banned a library that is not a beit midrash

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Dont get it? What is a Jew looking for in a Goyisheh libary anyhow? I wish they close it completly in Yiddeshe nieghborhoods! Ve’huyuh Machneichu Kudoish!!!

    taxpayer
    taxpayer
    15 years ago

    If you go to community meetings about such things, you can make a difference.

    If you only go about to meetings to discuss bicycle routes in Williamsburg, they won’t know you WANT the library open on sunday. Or that you care about your brothers who USE the library.
    or that you are an active participant in communal life outside your own shteeble.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    People who care about their public libraries should get involved. Libraries rely on donations and volunteers as well as government money. If you can’t give money, then volunteer. If there is an outpouring of people volunteering to help reshelve books, give directions, conduct reading hours, etc. on Sundays then politicians might recognize just how important the library is to the neighborhood.

    Pushita Yid
    Pushita Yid
    15 years ago

    If all public libraries are closed on sunday exept in the Jewish neiberhoods, you would have an influx of the lowest people coming to your neiberhood on sunday, guarenteed.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Many of you sound like idiots. Number one the library isn’t only for Jews. I am repulse that you thin k it is. The library is really for children and elderly.

    Trust me I have been to the libraries in Willie, Flatbush and BP, and the only yids I see are the creepy ones reading women mangazines.

    Please Yidden !!!
    Please Yidden !!!
    15 years ago

    Perhaps if there is a big need for a place for Mothers to take their children, yeshivas could begin programs with yiddisheh childrens books and activities for late sunday mornings through afternoons. The point is that we need to strengthen OUR community with good things for our young families. Who will start something new? This is a wonderful opportunity for a doer to step forward today and start planning something great !!! Come on Flatbush, Midwood, Borough Park !

    Big Reader
    Big Reader
    15 years ago

    The library in Monsey got mad that we voted no on their ridiculous budget and wanted revenge because they knew that we were the driving force to vote it down so they cut the busiest hours that the heimish come in. They have a lot of Jewish reading material from publishers like Artscroll Targum and Feldheim. They also said that they would cut down on the purchase of those books as well.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    We need to come out against this. They can easily close the libraries on Shabbos and have them open on Sundays in Boro Park, W’burg, Crown Heights and Midwood. A question that I do have, however, is what exaclty is osser about going to the library on Shabbos just to sit down and read a book? The issue of the letters on the spine of the book? As far as I know, that is a shita that only certian ppl hold by. As long as you are not using a computer, writing, stealing anything that would cause the alarm to go off, then what is the issue?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Just so you all know. I work for the library system and the library has evening hours as well as day time hours. So they closed Sundays, there was a reason they chose that day. Come during the week when the library has hours and leave Sundays for family time at home. We are in a budge crisis so you have to expect something to happen. I’m sure eventually it will reopen again once things get better.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    “As long as you are not using a computer, writing, stealing anything that would cause the alarm to go off, then what is the issue?”
    Let me understand: if someone steals something and does not set the alarm, this is OK?