The Day They Stole The Free Library

 

One day somebody stole the Free Library.

For two and half years, the Free Library stood on the corner of Keefer and Hawks, across from McLean Park and kitty-corner to the Wilder Snail. It was a small-scale replica of a mid-century modern bungalow, built of bright aluminum with a silver chimney and painted glass doors inspired by Mondrian.

Early on a clear, brisk Saturday morning in February, while taking my dog Lola on her walk around the park, I sensed something missing. The Free Library was gone—uprooted, post and all. At first, I assumed it was in for repairs, but later, I saw this message on Facebook: “Our beloved little library was stolen. For any info, call this number…”

Rewind to 2021, deep in the heart of the Covid lockdown. Like everywhere else, neighbours had spent the last year avoiding each other. The corner stores did their best to stay open despite mask requirements and capacity restrictions. I would run into people on the street and have awkwardly distanced conversations. There was no hanging out over coffee, no in-person meetings, no having people over for dinner. Community, in any functioning sense, was in ebb tide. It was in this atmosphere that three neighbours decided to build a free library.

Valerie is a mixed-media and assemblage artist who has lived in the neighbourhood for decades. Her partner, Arnt, is a sculptor and custom furniture maker. Ilka is a landscape architect and mother of twins.

Valerie and Arnt live in the building on the corner of Keefer and Hawks. It’s a rambling, two-story building built in 1894 and expanded and remodelled over the years to serve as a bakery, a grocery store, and a Tai Chi studio. In 1993, a group of friends bought it both to live and work in.

In the early 2000s, Arnt had built a park bench out of a salvaged log and scrap metal legs and set it up in the corner of the park across from his house. For users of the MacLean Park, which had only a few, standard-issue benches, it was a welcome addition, an imaginative, homemade contribution to the neighbourhood. People would linger over their morning coffee there. Quietly sit and read in the afternoon. Take in the park and the evening sun going down. Though no official permission was ever requested or granted, the Park Board didn’t dare remove it. It was Our Bench.

Over the years, Vancouver rains took their toll, and eventually, Arnt decided to remove it.

Its disappearance created a predictable stir, but we came to peace with the idea that it was Arnt’s to give and Arnt’s to take away. Soon after, another resident, Mira, started a campaign to push the Park Board to add more benches. Within a few months, an official standard-issue bench secured to a concrete pad appeared in its place.

But it wasn’t Our Bench. Valerie and Arnt sensed the loss, especially once COVID locked down most communal activities. Vancouver has a program called Small Neighbourhood Grants to encourage individuals to launch projects that benefit their community in some way. These projects can include block parties, herb gardens, and clean-up projects. Valerie and Arnt applied and got $500 to build a free library.

Free libraries are a common sight in residential neighbourhoods. They’re typically a homebuilt box, large enough to hold a row or two of used books, mounted on a post generally in front of someone’s house. Local readers donate books they’ve finished reading. The books are free to whoever wants them. According to FreeLittleLibrary.org, which offers plans and kits, the first little free library was built in Hudson, Wisconsin, in 2009 by Todd Bol as a tribute to his school-teacher mother. It resembled a miniature one-room schoolhouse. The idea caught on and grew into a non-profit organization that began installing libraries throughout the Midwestern United States. By 2022, it had registered over 150,000 of them in 120 countries.

Valerie and Arnt wanted a free library that was unique to Strathcona. To help design it, they recruited Ilka, who had experience as a public art consultant. They spent weeks brainstorming building materials, book capacity, ease of use, durability, the height of a typical children’s book,

wheelchair accessibility, etc. They settled on a sleek mid-century modern bungalow. It was simple, classy, and referenced a Vancouver Special, a low-cost, fifties-era design seen throughout the city. To make it resilient to rust or rot, they opted for aluminum, with a post and beam skeleton, a pitched roof and a tiny chimney. Two Plexiglass doors, hinged to either side and painted with a Mondrian-inspired block, opened to reveal two interior rooms separated by an off-centre dividing wall.

They decided to place it not directly in front of their house but on the corner, in a public space, on common ground, to send the message that it belonged to the neighbourhood. To prevent theft, Arnt secured it to a hollow steel post stuffed with rebar to make it near impossible to saw through, a design idea he got from a tour of the prison on Alcatraz Island. He secured it to the sidewalk by epoxying the bolts in a concrete pad, then filing off their corners to make them harder to unscrew.

On a Saturday morning in May 2021, they held an informal unveiling. Twenty-plus people attended, mostly nearby neighbours. Ten-year-old Samaya made a tiny painting to hang on the library’s wall.

The giving and taking of books began immediately. The Free Library could hold 20 to 30 books and got a constant churn of donors and takers. It was rare for a book to remain more than a day or two. The taller right side was usually full of children’s books; the left, novels, how-to’s, non-fiction and the occasional textbook. Valerie got into a routine of weeding out any titles that lingered much longer than a few days.  When she and Arnt planned a month-long vacation, Jill, a neighbour and frequent user, volunteered to keep an eye on it. She became the de facto librarian, checking on it daily.

That summer, at Valerie’s suggestion, Strathcona Community Policing Centre, a small city-funded, mostly volunteer group dedicated to improving neighbourhood safety, organized a weekly story hour on Saturday mornings. The idea was that an outdoor event would encourage families to emerge from lockdown. Different groups volunteered to be storytellers: the local police unit, firefighters, and a drag queen.

The quality of the books, both physically and content-wise, is surprisingly high. Donors developed an unspoken quality standard which discouraged others from using it as a trash barrel. It earned a level of respect. Respect for its existence and for the intelligence of the people who used it.

Not everyone felt that respect. There have been a handful of times it was tagged. Once, one of the doors was broken off. Arnt scraped off the paint or fixed the door. “Shit happens.” For a brief period, someone seemed to be taking all the books, presumably for resale somewhere. But Valerie figured, “It is what it is. At least they’re getting recycled somehow.”

Objects that evoke such a sense of belonging are rare. Modern urban neighbourhoods typically have two types of spaces – the private and the public. Mine and theirs. Homes or apartments have hard boundaries, locked doors and secure windows. Common areas like hallways and elevators do not belong to the people who live there. They belong to management, who keeps them neutral and antiseptic. Outside such buildings are sidewalks, greenways and streets that are overseen and managed by city workers. If we are lucky enough to have a park or public square, it’s rarely OK for us to reshape it. You don’t put up a Free Library in a public park because it doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to your immediate community. It belongs to the city. They decide what goes there and what gets removed.

In Vancouver, as in many other cities, residences and neighbourhoods are mostly built by development companies that have little tolerance for grassroots additions. As a caveat for their building permit, they might commission a public art project or leave some open space, but that space is theirs, designed for realtors to promote in brochures as “community space”. In such developed communities, common space is dictated by urban planners, building departments, management companies and strata councils, but rarely the people who live there. If someone were to put up a free library, it would be quietly removed. For the public good. We can’t have rogue individuals messing up the plan.

To me, the Free Library was an example of something different. It was an object that is neither mine nor theirs. It is ours. It belonged to all of us who live here. It was something we share in common. Many of us felt a sense of ownership. It was a physical embodiment of us.

In previous eras, such physical symbols were a centrepiece of communities. Churches. Cathedrals. Town squares. The pyramids of ancient Egyptians and Mayans. The Acropolis in Greece and the Forum in Rome. The Eiffel Tower. Big Ben. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Washington Monument. Town squares. City halls. Statues. Societies once expended considerable communal resources and labour to construct these manifestations of their common identity. Structures that inspired awe and lit a warm sense of ownership. My people built that.

The Free Library was also an invitation to participate. It made possible acts of generosity without expectation of reward. Granted, a used book may not have a high monetary value, but it has value to the person who reads it. It’s a gift, freely given. A message in a bottle sent out into the world that you hope will land on the shore of a curious reader.

Such an experience is rare. It is rare to have the opportunity to give something that is meaningful. I give monthly to the Red Cross; I donate used clothing to the Gospel Mission, I add a dollar to my grocery total for a food security program, and I occasionally give to a beggar on the street. But such donations are not the same as a book.  They are impersonal, an acknowledgement of abstract need, a gesture of goodwill. A book that I value is not something everyone wants. It is a way of reaching out to someone who, at some level, shares my curiosity. A sign of connection to a fellow traveller on the road of life. It gives me a quiet joy when I see that a book I’ve donated has been taken.

Taking a book from the Free Library is a similar experience. I leave behind titles that I think will better serve someone else. I take titles that feel are somehow intended for me. I wonder who among my neighbours put them there. I read them and usually return them when I’m done. I respect this quiet, unacknowledged transaction between people living in the same place and time—the silent bond that we somehow share not only a physical world but a mental one.

And so, the Strathcona Free Library became both a symbol and an opportunity. Or at least until someone stole it. Not just the books inside but the library itself. Somebody somehow unbolted its post and took it.

The next morning, Valerie posted the news on the neighbourhood’s Facebook page. The comments began within minutes. “oh no that is horrible. we loved that special library.” “Grrrrr.” “I’m weeping and seething at the same time.” “NO!!! Boo!” “Absolutely heartbreaking.”  “WHAT is WRONG with people??!!” People stopped by Valerie’s studio to express their shock and offer condolences. One neighbour volunteered to help write a new grant application or set up a Go Fund Me page.

Many felt the loss—not because we no longer had a source of free books, but because something that was ours was taken. It evoked sadness, anger, and even a whiff of despair. What is the world coming to? Who would steal something that had little worth to anyone but us? Why?

Loss is an emotion that awakens our instinct for community. After a tornado, a fire, or an earthquake, people realize that to overcome this setback, they need to bond together, assist those in need, and protect those who are vulnerable.

A spirit of community is also stirred by the acknowledgement of a common threat.

As we had no clue who had taken it, we had no one to go after. The beauty of Strathcona is that when something like this happens, at least one or two people do something. Make calls. Go searching, report it to the police, do something. Anything. It is this willingness to take ownership of a problem that isn’t directly yours that is a sign of a healthy community. The opposite of pulling down the shades and deciding it’s not my problem. Kitty Genovese did not live in Strathcona.

Why would anyone steal the Free Library? To sell? Who would buy it? To keep as an art object? Would such a connoisseur stoop to hacksawing bolts in the middle of a winter night? For revenge? For what? The imagination is quick to fill in the blanks.

The thought was that it might be for sale somewhere, either online or along nearby Hastings St., where a lively street market often features stolen bikes and lawn furniture.

Arnt assumed that someone stole it for scrap. “If they’ll take a catalytic converter….” So he phoned scraps yards, offering to buy it back if it showed up. They were not optimistic, saying it wouldn’t be worth more than a few bucks at best.

Valerie took to the internet, posting a picture and phone number on Facebook and Instagram groups.

Meanwhile, Jody, a retired university faculty who lived near the Free Library’s corner, was blissfully unaware of all the drama going on a short half-block away. He had made plans to go see a Pink Floyd cover band that evening, a nostalgic trip down memory lane. “The concert was great. Like a trip back to the seventies.” Walking home alone after midnight, he was far too wound up to sleep. So he checked his social media accounts and saw Valerie’s posting. He copied the photo and reposted it on the citywide subReddit site. Minutes later, at just after 1 AM, he received an alert that someone had responded. Checking, he found a map with an arrow pointed to a soccer park six blocks away. He forwarded the post to Val and went to sleep.

The next morning, as he was getting ready for a Sunday yoga class, he remembered the map. He drove down to the soccer park to the spot on the map, an area with some benches and a table. Three men were sound asleep on the benches. In between them, lying on the cold ground, was the Free Library, still attached to its post, intact and apparently undamaged. Carefully and quietly, not wanting to wake the sleeping trio, Jody slowly lifted it up, carried it to the trunk of his car, and drove it home. As it was still early, he didn’t want to wake Valerie, so he waited until after yoga to return it.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Valerie told me. “Not only was it back, but it was undamaged. Like it had gone for a little wander.” Arnt figured that, in the middle of the night, they’d somehow unfastened the bolts with a vice grip, hauled the whole two-hundred-pound objects six blocks before needing a break and then passed out. Who can explain the mysteries that drive men to take on such tasks?

Anyway, the next morning, using more secure bolts and more epoxy, the Free Library was back on its corner.

Where it remains to this day.

 

Dan Jackson   August 2024