The Shaw community’s interim library finally opened this weekend, nearly three years after the neighborhood’s full-service branch closed and six months after a prefabricated trailer was installed on Rhode Island Avenue.
Balloons hanging from the railing were the only indication Sunday that the 4,200-square-foot interim Watha T. Daniel Shaw branch library was in operation — the phone number had yet to be activated, and most residents apparently had no idea that the doors were open. The D.C. Library initially promised to have the facility up and running by June and then by mid-July, but power problems and other issues pushed back the timeline by months, to the community’s dismay.
The double-wide trailer near the intersection of 10th Street and Rhode Island Avenue NW had arrived by truck from Indiana early in the year. Pepco, however, only energized the building two weeks ago, a company spokesman said. Neighborhood leaders, who were not told that the library would open over the weekend, said on Friday they were not surprised by the repeated delays.
“I don’t find it weird,” said Alex Padro, a Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner. “I find it unconscionable and reprehensible, but I don’t find it weird.”
The additional delays were caused by issues with the computer network, library system spokeswoman Kandace Foreman said. The interim library includes 20 public computers with Internet access, Wi-Fi Internet access, and new book and multimedia collections. Watha T. Daniel was one of four neighborhood branches closed in December 2004 for renovations. The other three, Benning, Anacostia and Tenley-Friendship, have since been replaced with interim facilities — two trailers and one storefront.
The library system awarded contracts in March totaling $1.14 million to raze the four existing libraries. The new buildings aren’t expected to open until at least 2010.
“All I can do is hope that the city will do what it’s told the community it will do,” said Kevin Chapple, also a member of the Shaw advisory neighborhood commission. “It’s still two years away. It doesn’t seem like something that would cause a problem.”
