Neighborhood leaders in Glover Park are lobbying for an interim library in their community to temporarily replace the Georgetown branch that was ravaged by a fire two months ago.
A mile from the Georgetown library on Wisconsin Avenue, Glover Park’s commercial district “would conveniently serve Georgetown library patrons,” five members of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3B wrote in letters to Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Public Library Executive Director Ginnie Cooper.
“Commercial rents in our neighborhood are less expensive than Georgetown, and we currently have several available spaces that would provide an excellent interim home for the library,” the commissioners wrote.
The 72-year-old Georgetown branch, at 3265 R St., was charred during an April 30 three-alarm blaze that is believed to have been caused by a mishandled blowtorch, according to the fire department. Its reconstruction is expected to take at least two years and cost roughly $15 million.
With no library in their neighborhood, Glover Park residents have become regular users of the Georgetown, Palisades or Tenleytown branches.
Filling an empty storefront with a family-friendly destination could only help the community’s commercial strip, Commissioner Brian Cohen said.
“For Glover Park, having an interim library on the strip would be good for business and the community,” Cohen said. “But we didn’t go into this thinking about economic development. We went about this thinking ‘What is the best way to ensure that residents of Glover Park have the quickest and best access to a public library?’ ”
Cooper received the ANC’s letter, she said in an e-mail, and the library system’s associate director of neighborhood libraries is slated to attend the commission’s meeting Wednesday night.
“We welcome suggestions for the interim library and have gotten some already,” Cooper wrote. “We’ll hope to find a site as close to the current Georgetown Neighborhood Library as possible.”
The library system expects to open a 40-foot bookmobile in the parking lot of the Jelleff Boys and Girls Club, at 3265 S St., in the near term.
