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One of the great embarrassments of New York, the richest city in America, is how money can’t be found to keep public libraries open every single day.
It is, truly, a matter of priorities. Other far-reaching, progressive policy proposals can come with enormous upfront costs — municipal or statewide single-payer healthcare comes to mind — but there’s really no reason why the city can’t pay to keep libraries open every Saturday and Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams, in his executive budget, has proposed to keep the cuts to the library system that he ordered starting last year. If he has his way — and given his deteriorating relationship with the City Council, he might not — the library system will lose $58.3 million. If the cuts go through, library service citywide would be curtailed to five days a week, according to the presidents of the Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Public Libraries.
Since 2015, when Bill de Blasio boosted funding to the library system, six-day service has been the norm. This is not ideal, but it is better than five, which would see crucial weekend service evaporate entirely. Most library branches in the city are already closed on Sunday. Thanks to midyear budget cuts in November, seven-day service — available sparingly before then — is gone. The cuts would also mean delaying the renovations of certain branches.
Democrats in the City Council might successfully oppose Adams. This dynamic recalls the “budget dance” that was common during Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty. The Republican-turned-independent mayor would propose unpopular cuts to libraries, firehouses, and various social services that Democrats, come June, would reverse. Adams has much less clout than Bloomberg, so the City Council should be well-positioned to drive a hard bargain.
But it remains bizarre that libraries are ever on the chopping block. The municipal budget, this year, is expected to top $110 billion. Of that, less than $500 million is dedicated to the libraries. For a small fraction of the budget — if new cash needs to be found, maybe slash some of the patronage gigs at City Hall, the Department of Education, and elsewhere — libraries could be open every day.
Public libraries are one of the great egalitarian innovations that count, in retrospect, as a modern miracle. A capitalist American society decided in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that books should be available to everyone for free and physical spaces should exist where anyone can enter and learn.
Today, libraries are vital lifelines for the working class and poor of the five boroughs. They remain bulwarks of the educational system and necessary community centers. At the center of just about every neighborhood in the city is a public library.
Currently, most libraries are shut on Sundays, an unnecessary punishment for New Yorkers who work on weekdays and children who may only have a free Sunday to get to the library. If anything, weekend service is the most urgent — the teacher, the janitor, or the clerk may only have a stray Sunday to make it to the library at all.
Adams, who grew up working class in Queens, should understand this. Yet his budgeting shows the library system is, at best, an afterthought for him. What he does understand is politics — a primary election is almost one year away and following through on austerity for public libraries will be very unpopular. If Adam wants to deprive his opponents of political oxygen, he’d be wise to side with the City Council and boost library funding. Otherwise the most unpopular mayor in modern times will keep sinking.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
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Ross Barkan , 2024-04-29 17:50:14
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