Joel Walsh
Lowell Resident
Class of 2001 THE LOWELL CITY LIBRARY               As you walk across Merrimack Street to the Lowell City Library, the soft gray granite building in front of you will present itself with all the Victorian-ness of the decorative mockminarets growing out of its sides or its stained-glass windows enclosed by columned archways.  The building demands a reaction: and like most such personalities. it often receives an unfavorable one- especially from those accustomed to the politer tones of other ages of architecture- including that of the state's library funding commission, which would rather fund its demolition than its improvement.  But since one doesn't demolish one's good friends- and for many, me included, it has been an almost life-long friendship Lowell will have its library for a long time to come.
            With those who have accepted its invitation to enter, the library immediately relaxes, exchanging its granite facade for thickly varnished wood walls in the vestibule; and qualifies its exterior showiness with two allegorical images of industry in stained glass: one of a medievaly clothed woman at a loom and another of a similarly dressed man at a printing press.  The images appear as if they were illustrations in an illuminated manuscript, and are the homage of the library- a place of leisure- to Work, specifically the textile and printing industries to which the library owes its existence, having been built by a textile mill town for the purpose of holding books.
            Inside, the building relaxes even more as you enter the main floor, where the everyday business of check-outs, returns and reference are carried out and the walls are lined with shelves of books rather than granite carving or stained glass.  The main check-out and return desk is immediately in front of the entrance, in the center of the main floor, providing a focal point of physical activity that mirrors the mental activity of the library.
            Past the circulation desk, in the back of the library, are the entrances to the stacks.  Here, the library neither needs nor uses decoration, letting the rows upon rows of knowledge stand silent for themselves, on spare steel shelves.  Shiny, faded, smooth, grainy covers; crisp- scented pages like freshly cut wood, or with the soft smell like old linen- the books themselves are a sensual feast of colors, textures, and scents.  But it's what's inside that counts most, and you can sit for hours on the cold steel grating under the plain rotunda ceiling- as Jack Kerouac did- enveloped in one of a hundred thousand voices.